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BOOK IV
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CHAPTER I
THE commencement of the reign of the
new Emperor of Soudan was contemporaneous with three notable events in
After oscillating for centuries between a rule founded upon the ignorance of its
peasant masses, namely, the rule of a priest-hood that fostered and throve upon
that ignorance; and a rule emanating from and sustained by the enlightened and
naturally impatient denizens of its towns and cities, – France at length found
at her head one who, while inheriting the most celebrated name in her historic
roll, possessed also the Conscience, through the lack of which his ancestors had
failed to secure stability for their dynasty and nation.
A Napoleon had now arisen who had the courage to follow an English example, and
adopt the only method that could free his country from the evil which had led to
all its misfortunes. Seeing that a Henry VIII, was as necessary to complete the
Emancipation of France as it had been to commence the Reformation of England,
this prince determined to play such a part. It is owing to this determination,
and the success with which it was carried into execution, that the
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never been an altogether unselfish one. The
example of
I need not dwell upon the despair of the French priests in presence of the
necessity thus forced upon them of going to school again to unlearn all their
old habits and ideas. The Government was firm with them, but it was also tender.
Time was allowed. The old ones were pensioned off. The younger adapted
themselves to the new regime. And so it has come that France now at length sees
her youngest generations growing up in the enjoyment of their rational faculties
rationally developed, and hoi institutions endowed with a stability they have
never before known. Under an educational regime which repudiates all dogmatic
teaching in favour of that of experience, her ancient race of Communistic
Doctrinaires have learnt to regard security of
individual property as the first essential of civilization. In short,
(p.
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upon by the Anglo-Teutonic races, and to be
adopted finally, as we shall see, even by the dark-skinned Turanians of Central
Africa.
But
But
It was in accordance with the inveterate papalism of the Irish character, that
even the “Protestant” church of that country was constituted. A once famous
English statesman, having acquired power by the popular sympathies which
distinguished one side of his mind, used it for the gratification of the
ecclesiastical tendencies which had possession of his other side. Availing
himself of a period of dissatisfaction with the then existing state of the Irish
branch of the National Church, he declined to wait until the public mind should
be fairly enlightened, and took advantage of a political crisis to detach that
branch altogether from the nation, and erect it into a sect, endowing it at the
same time with a large portion of the National Church property. Thus, deprived
of the fund and
(p.
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organization set apart by the providence of
previous generations for promoting the highest welfare of its whole people; and
handed over almost helpless to the two great religious parties which divided
nearly the whole country between them, the progress of
Her leading sons said –
“Let us amalgamate the resources of all the religious sects whose principles and
divisions have so long ministered to our hindrance. Let us set ourselves free
from the trammels of tradition, by remodelling the churches upon the basis of
the school, so that we too, like Italy, like Spain, like France, aye and like
England, may have one all-comprehending’ national organization, devoted to the
promotion of our highest welfare, intellectual, moral and spiritual; and
constituting at once the national church and national school system of Ireland.”
They could not say like
(p.
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standard. Her own people, however, say that
it is because they have so much land to look after, in comparison with other
peoples. This may to some extent account for the defect. Too much of Earth is
apt to be an impediment to the cultivation of the higher nature, which regards
the heaven of the Ideal.
The third notable event of this time took place, not upon the arena of nations,
but in a chamber in the Triangle. It was a consultation between Christmas Carol
and Lord Avenil on the subject of the trigonometrical survey of
The two former events were in no way connected with our story. They are referred
to only for the purpose of illustrating the condition of
The survey in question was sufficiently complete to demonstrate the feasibility
of an idea which had occurred to Criss. As it was a practical idea, and one
promising vast material results, it was adopted with alacrity by Avenil. To his
own surprise and delight, Avenil found himself admiring a vast conception, and
encouraging a vast project, that conception and that project having originated
with his dreamy and idealistic ward. As with all vast projects, it would,
probably, for some time have remained a project, had not special circumstances
occurred to hasten its realization.
A terrible plague broke out in Soudan, ravaging in particular the plains which
extend from
(p.
260)
plague was caused by an extraordinary
overflow of the lake and its tributaries, which kept the surrounding country in
the condition of a swamp for a much longer period than was usual. The overflow
and the plague were the circumstances which hastened the execution of Criss’s
project. This project itself was nothing less than the draining of the Plateau,
by converting the river Shary, the main feeder of the lake, and the lake
itself into a regular well-ordered navigable water system, which should
discharge itself into the Sahara, and either by the deposit of its sediment
there form a new delta, akin to that of Egypt, or flow, a continuous river, to
the sea.
On the breaking out of the plague, Criss, ever on the watch for an opportunity
of being useful, had gathered a powerful staff of doctors, and transported them
by aërial transit, with all the appliances of their art, to the afflicted
region. As the disease contained symptoms which were new, some little time
elapsed before the precise nature of its essential poison was ascertained and
the antidote found. When at length the doctors were able to work with good
effect, myriads had fallen, and among them the whole family of the Hazeltines,
Nannie’s relations. Nannie herself escaped unharmed. Utterly forlorn, she
accepted Criss’s offer of a home with his friends in
Actuated by Criss’s influence and example, the young Emperor laboured
assiduously to mitigate the sufferings of his people, and entered warmly into
the scheme proposed for preventing a renewal of them. He did not conceal from
Criss the passionate preference which he felt for the achievements of war over
those of peace; neither did he abandon his desire of vengeance on his hated
neighbours, the Egyptians. But of this last he said nothing; for he saw that at
present the stability of his throne depended on his following his cousin’s
counsel and Criss had given him to understand that he would be no party to a war
of aggression. He had not yet been crowned,
(p.
261)
nor had the sacred talisman of his race yet
returned to his keeping. The quiet determination shown by Criss in respect of
these jewels had served to rivet yet more firmly his influence over the Emperor.
On the approach of the anniversary of his accession, the Emperor was anxious for
the ceremonial which was to complete his dignity. It was with no slight
reluctance and chagrin that he adopted Criss’s counsel, and issued a
proclamation deferring the event for another year. “A coronation,” said this
document, “should be a season of universal rejoicing. The Emperor, sharing in
the afflictions of his people, cannot rejoice while they are suffering, neither
can he call on them to rejoice while yet smarting under recent bereavements. Let
Emperor and People continue to work together for the general good, and when the
plague is happily stayed, and the memory of its sorrows faded, then shall all
Soudan join in a grand festival of dignity and delight.”
Criss’s repeated injunction to his Imperial cousin was in this wise: – “Do your
duty up to the highest point to which it is discernible. Do it because it is
your duty, as well as that of every man to do the best he finds in him, and
without thinking of reward. Do your duty, and perchance a reward will come, even
beyond that of having been able so to do.”
The Emperor shrugged his shoulders, and said that he should be acting contrary
to all the traditions, not of his own race merely, but of all kings and emperors
he had ever heard of. Nevertheless, to show his regard for his relative and
friend, he would do his duty as thus indicated.
Criss had an idea which at present he kept carefully concealed in his own
breast. He also had information which he with equal care strove to keep from
reaching the Emperor. The idea was to utilize the River Niger in the
regeneration of Africa, by borrowing at least a portion of its abounding waters,
and turning them, at the northernmost point of their vast bend, into the thirsty
Sahara, to swell the stream to be drawn from
(p.
262)
is the chief, towards a political union with
the Empire of Central Africa.
The fame of the young Emperor’s conduct since his accession, especially in
regard to the plague, had spread far and wide, and won for him a victory which
not all the arms of his predecessors had been able to accomplish. To add to
their dominions the teeming. and wealthy provinces of the
The young Emperor, while surprised at the fame of his good deeds, had no idea of
the practical shape that fame was about to take. Criss, whose Ariel was by this
time known throughout the whole of Soudan, from the Straits of Babel Mandeb to
the shores of Senegambia, and who was everywhere recognized as the Emperor’s
cousin and friend, had held many a secret conference with the leading men of the
(p.
263)
Criss contrived that the intelligence of the union of the provinces of the
Before finally giving in their adherence, the new provinces had made one
stipulation – that their religion should be respected. The Emperor’s reply,
dictated by Criss, had, wonderful to say, given complete satisfaction, alike to
the intelligent and to the fanatic. He had told them that he regarded it as his
business as Emperor, to punish offences against man; it was for God to deal with
offences against Himself, and this was a function which no man could usurp
without being guilty of blasphemy.
Many nations sent their congratulations to the young Emperor. The arrival at
Bornou of the various ambassadors and their suites, in gorgeous aërial
conveyances, from all parts of the world, filled the multitudes with admiration,
and eagerness for liberty to navigate the air themselves. They were given to
understand that when they were sufficiently educated and civilized to enter the
Confederacy of the Nations, they also should be entrusted with the same high
privilege of navigating the atmosphere – the kingdom of the heavens being open
only to those who knew how to use the earth without abusing it.
The demeanour of the young Emperor towards the ambassadors was everything that
Criss could wish, with one exception. His feelings towards
(p.
264)
respect to her representative as to the rest.
Indeed, to speak precisely, the Emperor showed such scant courtesy to the
Egyptian ambassador, as to convince Criss that his disposition still retained a
considerable modicum of the ancient barbarism of his race. He did not, however,
despair of ultimately eradicating it.
CHAPTER II
NANNIE was now an orphan. The
intelligence brought her no grief. She was penniless; but she cared not for it.
If the world had no place for a young, beautiful, vivacious woman, the sooner,
thought Nannie, she quitted it the better. Her business was to love and be
loved, and a fig for the civilizations if they required more of her in order to
live. Men, indeed! What were men for, except to support women? Better go back to
her country –
And Nannie’s tirade ended in a burst of tears, much to the astonishment of
Susanna Avenil, who shook her head and looked grave for a considerable period
before venturing a word in mitigation of a frame of mind so utterly
incomprehensible to her.
“Ah, my dear child,” she at length observed. “Men now-a-days are apt to fall in
love with women for the capacities of their minds and the dispositions of their
hearts, and not for their faces merely, no matter how charming they may be. I
doubt much whether even your sweet face will win a man really worth the having.
Besides, your self respect must prevent you from making yourself dependent upon
such a chance. “Women in our times are above trusting for the means of existence
to the favour of anyone, least of all to that of a member of the rival sex.”
(p.
265)
Nannie’s only answer was a pout of such exquisite, petulant loveliness, that
Mistress Avenil could not help smiling, and saying, –
“Well, Nannie dear, men are foolish sometimes; and if you look like that, there
is no knowing what they may not be inclined to do. But it is not as a woman, but
as a dear and naughty child that you will be loved. I suspect I shall have to
turn you over to masculine treatment and advice, ere you sober down into a
practical being. Now my brother ––”
“Oh, no, no,” exclaimed Nannie; “he is much too formidable a personage to be
troubled about me.”
“Well, you are fond of Mr. Greathead ––”
“Yes, I am fond of Mr. Greathead. He likes me too.”
“Well, perhaps his advice will be more welcome than mine.”
“I didn’t know he was at home.”
“He is coming back very soon, on a commission from Mr. Carol, who I am sure will
be glad to hear you have consulted with Mr. Greathead, and begun to learn
something useful ––”
“I don’t care to make Mr. Carol glad one bit,” said Nannie, firmly. “If he cares
enough about me to be glad, why does he go away and stay so long without coming
to see me?”
“Mr. Carol has much to do in the world. He is not one to neglect his duties,
even for the pleasure your society might afford him. Besides, he no doubt
thinks, if he thinks about you at all, that you are too much occupied with your
studies to know whether he is absent or present.”
“Is he – is Mr. Carol really a man?” asked Nannie. “He makes me think sometimes
that he must be something like the angels he meets up in the sky. He is always
thinking of duty, and doesn’t care for people, I mean for anybody in
particular.”
“I really must tell him of your serious impeachment of his humanity,” said
Susanna; “perhaps it will lead him to turn over a new leaf, and enact some other
character.”
“Do,” said Nannie, “I don’t like anyone I like to be cold blooded.”
“I am glad you like him, for I am sure you ought, if only in gratitude.”
(p.
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“I wish you hadn’t said that. One doesn’t like people through gratitude. But I
like him well enough not to mind o wing him a kindness. I hope he won’t think I
like him for gratitude.”
“But you do not like him well enough to do what you don’t like yourself, to
please him?”
“You mean about these stupid books and tasks. Anybody who likes me, ought to
like me as I am, and not want to make me different. That is liking some one
else, not me.”
“My idea of liking a person,” said Mistress Avenil, “is trying to please them by
doing as they wish.”
“And my idea,” returned the indomitable Nannie, “is making them like me whether
I try to please them or not.”
It passed the ability of the whole Avenil family to under-stand Nannie. They
could not deny her native quickness of comprehension, whenever she gave a
moment’s attention to any of their occupations, but she seemed utterly incapable
of submitting to the discipline of training, so as to learn anything thoroughly.
Yet, while indifferent to the whole range of artistic or scientific
acquirements, in whatever related to womanly airs and graces she was a born
adept. Her perception of the harmonious in colour and elegant in form was
marvellous and unerring. Bessie Avenil declared that she defrauded society in
not being a milliner. Her intuitions as to character were like sudden
inspirations. The younger Avenil girls took to her as a geologist to a first
discovered specimen of an extinct species; shewing her all the kindness in their
power by having her to stay with them in return, and affording her every
facility for acquiring knowledge and skill in the various vocations wherewith
they themselves had been brought up to minister to their own wants and the
requirements of the community.
But town life and town arts did not suit Nannie. She was of the wild, and loved
only the open country. The difference between the pursuits of town and those of
country was to her as the difference between death and life. It thus came that
whenever Bertie was at his residence on the Surrey Downs, she
(p.
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made Ariel Cottage her home. He was as a
father to her, and whenever she saw Criss it was in Bertie’s presence.
Criss had a charming place of his own not far from his old friend, consisting of
a mansion and garden, but Nannie had as yet scarcely seen the interior, and the
owner was rarely in it for many days together.
Criss’s life lay now between
On receipt of this, Criss made up his mind to start for
Though much disappointed by his son’s persistent refusal to come into his
schemes, he left him his blessing and his millions. And it was long before
anything more was heard to justify the suspicions which had been raised
respecting any plot in which
Criss seemed to have realised the fact of his relationship too slightly to be
seriously affected. It was an acquaintance rather than a parent that he had
lost, and that an acquaintance accidentally
(p.
268)
and inconveniently thrust upon him. Not only
had no opportunity been given for the tie of nature to develop into one of
affection and esteem, but there seemed little probability that it ever would
have done so. Of his mother Criss had ever thought with much yearning; but so
far from this being so with regard to his father, he had, by some instinct for
which he could not account, come to look upon himself as in a measure exempt
from the condition of generation by double procession ordinarily imposed upon
mortals. It may be that his own mind was wont so vividly to personify Nature,
especially in its creative aspect, as to make him, in the absence of other
parents, feel himself to be derived directly from it.
It never occurred to Criss that his kindness to Nannie might entail upon him any
responsibility in regard to her future. He took it for granted that under the
sage tuition of his friends, and the sobering influences of English
civilization, the pretty wayward child would soon learn to follow an even course
of life, engaged in the ordinary duties and pleasures of the young gentlewoman
of the period, and in the event of marriage overtaking her, accepting her fate
with a quiet gladness. It was only by slow degrees that Criss’s friends learnt
to comprehend her character, and to discern the ruling, though to herself
unconscious, motive of her demeanour.
Bertie Greathead, now well advanced in middle age, watched Nannie long and
anxiously before the truth dawned upon him. Her preference for the freedom of a
country life did not appear to him a sufficient reason why she should never be
so happy as when enacting the part of mistress of his cottage. The dwelling
itself was plain of aspect and devoid of luxury. His Household and requirements
were of the simplest. He himself made no pretence to be other than an honest,
simple, tender-hearted man, of quiet and meditative habit. Yet Nannie would sulk
and look cross whenever he left home, and she had to return to her friends in
(p.
269)
even for Criss she seemed scarcely to care
when she met him in the society of the Triangle, while when on the
Bertie took occasion one evening in the Cottage to twit her with her unnatural
preference for an ordinary dwelling place and the society of a dull old man, to
the brilliance and animation of the Triangle. Nannie replied that she knew where
she was happiest, and saw nothing odd in her not caring to be among people who
were so clever and learned and civilized, that they looked upon her as a sort of
natural curiosity; and that when she had a friend, she liked to have him all to
herself, instead of sharing his attention with other people. It was not in
“society” that she first knew “Mr. Carol,” as she was obliged to call him in
this stupid formal life, and it was not in “society “That she cared to see him.
She was much happier to be alone there, and have Criss, – yes, she would call
him Criss, – All to herself, or at least with only Mr. Greathead besides.
Nannie’s greatest delight was to be seen walking or driving with Criss. She was
perfectly aware of the admiration she excited, an admiration which had attracted
many most eligible young men to her side, only to be repulsed with the coolest
disdain. But by the side of Criss she fairly swelled with pride, and no smallest
item of the sensation they produced was lost upon her. They certainly make. a
wondrously remarkable couple; but it may be doubted whether Nannie knew how much
was contributed to the effect by Criss’s own appearance.
“I like dark men. I look best beside a dark man. It needs the contrast to set me
off properly. He looks better, too, beside a fair woman.”
That was her way of putting it. But truly Criss’s luminous soul shining through
his almost Oriental skin, imparted to him an aspect sufficiently notable when
compared with ordinary folk without Nannie’s angelic radiance to heighten the
contrast.
As time went on, and Bertie’s advancing age made him withdraw himself more and
more from active life, and together with Nannie, he passed more and more of his
time at the Cottage, it
(p.
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became plain to him that her moods were
coming to be wholly dependent upon Criss. His presence made her an embodied joy;
his absence, a picture of dull despair. Whether consciously or unconsciously to
herself, he had become the object of her life; – he in whose own life probably
the last possible object was a woman.
As the Avenils had failed, so did Bertie fail, to induce Nannie to occupy
herself with any sort of work or study. They sought for indications of some
native bias which might be turned to account, but could detect none, except a
certain fondness for children which led her to delight in decorating with
ornaments any she could get hold of; that is, any that were pretty, for with her
personal beauty was indispensable. Her kind critics were struck, too, with her
preference for infants over older children, and a keener analysis made the
discovery that the maternal instinct rivalled in her the instinct which made her
desire to be attractive to the opposite sex. She loved babies as children love
dolls, and boasted that no one else could handle them as well as she did. It was
the difference between her genuine unsophisticated mode of expressing her
nature, and that of the women of the older civilization, which prevented the
mystery of Nannie’s character from being sooner revealed. So hard is it for
confirmed complexity to comprehend the simple elements even of its own
constitution.
Bertie alone ventured to say a word to Criss respecting his protégée. She
chanced to enter the room while they were speaking of her, and her strange
preference for so quiet a life as that of the Cottage. Criss took the
opportunity to inquire of her whether there was anything she needed to add to
her comfort. Nannie said she supposed not. She didn’t know of anything, at any
rate of anything that he could provide. And then she turned very red, and with a
sort of hysterical sob, hurried away from the room.
Distressed and perplexed, Criss turned to Bertie for an explanation. Had
anything occurred to trouble her? he enquired.
“I cannot say, indeed,” replied Bertie. “Young women
(p.
271)
have never made a branch of my studies. Ask
herself, quietly when alone, for instance, while walking in the garden some
evening. Your return always elates, as much as your departure depresses her. My
impression is that she thinks of nothing else from morning till night. Indeed, I
don’t see how she can, for she really has nothing else to occupy her thoughts.
She is a very woman, so far as I understand woman’s nature; and a woman of women
in her nature.”
“And I was looking upon her as but a child,” said Criss.
“The young men of the neighbourhood and the Triangle show more discernment,”
replied Bertie; “but she has no eyes or thoughts but for one. My dear boy, if
you wish her well, you must contrive some change for her.”
Criss did not see Nannie again until he came suddenly upon her in the garden on
that same evening. If she had intended to avoid him it was too late, so she
ma*de up her rapid mind to lead the conversation herself. She had never shown
much interest in Soudan, or his accounts of his doings there. Of the magnitude
of his operations, and the position his birth and fortune gave him, she was
ignorant. Now, she eagerly plied him with questions about the country which had
so long been her home. What had become of the Hazeltine property? did her
brother-in-law’s relations live upon it, or had they sold it to strangers? would
the people like to see her back among them? and could she not go and be useful
in nursing the people with the plague, or do” something else to pass the time?
She sup-posed there must be some very nice folks there, as he seemed to like
being there so much better than in
“And what have you and Bertie been quarrelling about?” asked Criss.
“Does he say we have quarrelled?”
“He has said nothing, save that I must ask yourself what has occurred to make
you discontented.”
(p.
272)
“Did he say I am discontented?”
“No, you have yourself admitted as much.”
“Oh.”
“Is it not so?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t know what?”
“That I am discontented, and have admitted it.”
“Well, I won’t tease you with questions. I will try and find out for myself, by
watching you.”
“You never stay long enough for that.”
“I am going to stay longer than usual this time.”
“Then you won’t be able to find me out.”
“Why?”
“Because when you are here I am never discontented.”
“Very prettily said, Nannie. I shall reward you by showing you some of the
pretty things in my house tomorrow.”
“Oh, I do so long to see your house, and everything in it. I have only had one
little peep, and it seemed so nice, I could not think how you could stay so much
away from it. I hope it will take a long time to see it all.”
“Well, you must come over early, and bring Bertie to breakfast, and spend the
day with me.”
Nannie went to bed radiant with pleasure. Criss and Bertie sat up some time to
talk over the great engineering operations already in progress at
(p.
273)
This was to be contingent upon the experiment
with
Bertie remarked that although he might succeed in restraining the overflow of
the lake, and so vastly improving the condition of the plateau, he suspected
that the desert could swallow up any amount of water that might be made to rim
into it.
Criss said that such might at first be the result, but
“Why, you will have done more than discover a world,” exclaimed Bertie, as the
vast scheme became unfolded before him. “You will have created one.”
“My scheme involves far more even than I have told you,” replied Criss. “A world
without a sea, has no charms for me. The ocean which once filled the
CHAPTER III
A
SOUND of rippling laughter and singing
in the garden, drew Criss early to his window next morning. The impatient Nannie
could not wait for the breakfast hour, or for Bertie to accompany her. Criss’s
housekeeper, – a young married woman,
(p.
274)
who, with her husband and children, dwelt in
the house, – was surprised by the apparition of Nannie, while the dew still lay
thick on the lawn, saying she was come to stay. All day, and demanding of her
the baby, that she might nurse it until breakfast time.
Nannie and the housekeeper were excellent friends, and the young mother had
already proved Nannie’s qualifications for such an office. A charming picture to
Criss did the two make in his garden: Nannie, with all the skill of an
experienced nurse, tossing and fondling the child, and the child responding
delightedly to her blandishments by throwing about its little limbs and crowing.
Criss thought he had never seen Nannie look so lovely, or so womanly.
“Surely,” thought he to himself, “That must be what she was made for. Poor
child, what a pity it is there is no one here that she likes.”
Nannie presided at Criss’s breakfast table, precisely as she had learned to do
at Bertie’s; and Criss thought the period of his meal had never been so bright
and cheerful before. After breakfast she disappeared for an hour, leaving the
men to discuss the day’s affairs, and was presently back in the garden with the
child. Then returning, she told Criss that she came to remind him of his promise
to show her the house and its contents; whereupon he took her into a room which
hitherto had been seen by her only in its closed and muffled state, but now was
manifest in all its beauty of ornament and decoration. This was the
drawing-room, where Criss had arranged his paintings, and sculptures, and
cabinets of curiosities. Opening one of these, he took out a necklace and
locket, which had excited her admiration, and hung it round her fair neck.
Nannie rushed in delight to the glass to admire herself thus decorated, and then
returned it to Criss. But he told her that he hoped she would do him the favour
to keep it for her own. Nannie said it was lovely, and suited her exactly, but
she would rather not keep it; alleging as a reason, in answer to Criss’s
questionings, that she understood that only married or elderly women wore such
jewels.
(p.
275)
“But even if you cannot wear it at present,” he said, “you can keep it until you
have attained the necessary qualifications.”
“No; I shall never marry,” she answered, shortly.
“You never marry! My dear Nannie, what a fancy! Why, to see you with that child,
anyone would think you were made for no other purpose.”
“Appearances are very deceitful,” said Nannie, demurely. “I could only marry
where I was properly loved; and no one will love me like that. I am not a woman.
who could tolerate a man coming to me, and saying, ‘Oh, I do love you with my
whole heart so dearly, that I beg you will let me take you for a time on trial,
to see what sort of a woman you will turn out.’ That’s what they do in Soudan.
Mattie, my sister, was properly loved and properly married, for Frank took her
for altogether at once. I am like her in that. I wouldn’t be married in any
other way. No rehearsals for me.”
“You forget, Nannie, that the women as well as the men, have the benefit of the
trial. Suppose you found yourself irrevocably tied to a man who was unworthy of
you, or who did not ‘properly’ love you. One cannot always judge beforehand how
people will agree in a new relationship.”
“A woman who is a woman can always tell a man who is a man, when she sees him;
and if she is a woman she can make him love her as he ought.”
“Well, Nannie, at any rate you need have no misgivings on the score of not being
properly loved, when your time comes. No man can be indifferent to your sweet
face and winning ways.”
“I don’t believe you mean a word of it,” exclaimed Nannie, “for you are quite
indifferent to them yourself.” And she composed her pretty lips into a pout,
while her eyes sparkled, and her whole frame vibrated with quick vitality.
“So far from being indifferent to your charms, Nannie dear,” replied Criss, “I
have found myself wondering sometimes whether, if you had not been possessed of
them, I should have acted by you as I have done, from a sense of duty only.”
(p.
276)
“Oh, I hope not!” cried Nannie; “I could not bear to have you do things for me
from a sense of duty, and not because you admire and – and – care for me.”
Nannie’s profound sense of superiority to all codes whatever of morals, and her
habit of unconsciously referring all conduct to the criterion of affection, had
often struck Criss as a remarkable element in her character. It coincided with
his own intuitions in respect to the infinite; for he had found himself as much
at a loss to discern the connection between the spiritual and moral, as between
the physical and moral worlds. And here was the animal world, as represented by
one of its highest types – a lovely, impulsive girl – repudiating it also.
“Ah!” he said, “what a world this would be if the promptings of love were always
in accordance with those of duty. We might drop the word duty out of our
dictionaries altogether then, and I like would rightly take the place of I ought. But we must have very
well-regulated natures for that to be so, you know.”
“I am sure,” returned Nannie, “that if it was anybody’s ‘duty’ to like me
properly, it would be his duty to do whatever I liked, too! And I know he would
be repaid by being very happy in return.”
“I don’t doubt it in the least,” replied Criss; “and I think he will be a very
fortunate fellow who shall win the whole of your affectionate little heart for
himself.”
Nannie made a gesture of impatience, and turning to some article in the room,
began asking him questions about it. The morning passed rapidly, and in the
afternoon several of Criss’s friends came, much to Nannie’s discomposure, for it
put an end to her exclusive possession of him. While resenting the demands made
by these upon his attention, she was struck by the greatness of the deference
they showed him. Having no conception of the position held by him in the regards
of men, and having, moreover, seen him only among his oldest and most familiar
friends, she found herself now compelled to make some modification in her view
of him. And as nothing gave Nannie greater annoyance than having to modify a
view once taken,
(p.
277)
this, and his engrossment by strangers,
combined to make the afternoon pass as disagreeably for her as the morning had
passed pleasantly.
In the evening they were alone again, and Nannie’s good temper returned; though
she was still disconcerted at finding herself obliged to regard Criss as a
personage of more importance than she had ever before deemed him. Nannie was
very proud, and held herself to be as good as anyone. It was intolerable that
any should deem themselves too good for her. And she shrank from the thought of
Criss looking upon her as the occupant of a mere comer in his occasional
regards, as might easily be the case if he were a great personage, engaged in
important pursuits.
However, all reflections of this kind vanished in presence of the wonders
revealed to her for the first time in the splendid microscope which Criss
exhibited to her. For some time her faculty of surprise and admiration was so
excited as to over-power all other faculties; but at length her manner changed,
her delight and vivacity disappeared, and she pushed the instrument away, saying
she could not bear it – it made her feel so insignificant. It was no good being
bigger, or cleverer, or prettier, than those tiny, ugly specimens, if when you
magnified them you found them just as beautiful and perfect as yourself. And it
was but a qualified submission that she made when Criss told her that he, on the
contrary, derived more spiritual comfort from the microscope than almost from
anything else; inasmuch as by revealing the same perfect organization pervading
the infinitely small that we find in the large, it demonstrates that nothing is
too minute or unimportant to be the subject of the Divine law and providence.
Nannie expressed her approval of this thought, but said that, after looking
through the microscope, it seemed to her as if there were no such differences as
small and great, ugly and pretty.
Criss spent the next day in
(p.
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the garden, saying she felt the house too
close for her, and preferred the air. Again they talked about her, and Bertie
said that Nannie had confessed that she had never been so happy and so miserable
as yesterday. The strength of her feelings, he said, fairly frightened him, and
he did not know to what they might bring her, unless she were provided with some
object on which to bestow them.
“But why should she have been so happy, and why so miserable at my house?”
“Well, so far as I can make out, she was happy because she was with the only
friend she has in the world; and miserable because that friend did not seem to
be equally engrossed by her.”
“But,” said Criss, “That is very much like what is called ‘being in love.’ “
“Very much, indeed,” said Bertie, drily.
“But you do not mean to say that Nannie is ‘in that condition as regards me?”
“I believe that if ever young woman was over head and ears in love with young
man, she is that at this moment with you.”
“Dear me,” said Criss, “I never thought of such a thing.”
“You don’t seem over pleased at what any other man of your age would give his
ears for,” said Bertie, unconsciously repeating and recalling to Criss’s memory
almost the very words Nannie had used of herself in the Ariel.
“I suppose she is very beautiful,” remarked Criss, as if he had never made up
his mind on the subject.
“Not a man beholds her but declares that he never saw her equal, and that not
for beauty of feature and form merely, but for the peculiar feminineness of her
look and ways. One cannot fancy her other than always young and blithesome.”
“And as good as her looks?” said Criss, interrogatively.
“I believe,” answered Bertie, “that her nature is a force which she will find
hard to control. “Way it will have, but its direction will depend upon the
circumstances in which she will be placed, and the people with whom she will
have to deal. Indeed, the responsibility of supervising her is already become
(p.
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more than I like to contemplate. Yet I cannot
think of any change that would be for the better, excepting one. Only a husband
can really influence her development and lot. Her whole nature throughout is
genuine, rich, and untilled as a virgin soil; and like it, ready to bear a crop
of good or evil, according to the will of the husbandman.”
Here Bertie chuckled at his own unintended double.
“The strength of her character,” he went on, “consists in her affections. She
will abandon herself utterly to their dominion. Whatever she may do, whether in
love or hate, will be done heartily. The man who marries her will be tied to no
inert mass. Her intense vitality will not let her be ignored, or got accustomed
to as a mere habit. But she will be an active element in his existence, whether
for his happiness or his misery. There is no sameness about her. Reading my
Shakespeare the other evening, when I came to his description of Cleopatra, as
infinite in variety, and lovely in all, I was irresistibly reminded of the dear
child. And I truly believe she needs only a return as genuine as that which she
renders, to insure the happier fate.”
“Well, Nannie, how is the head now?” said Criss, joining her in the garden. “I
hope you like my house well enough to give me the pleasure of seeing you in it
again soon.”
“I like the house and everything about it so well, that if it belonged to me, I
should not always be leaving it, as you do, for other places. But was it really
a pleasure to you to see me in it? I hope it was, because I like nothing so much
as giving you pleasure.”
“My dear Nannie, while flitting about on the lawn and among the flowers, you
looked like a fair young angel. And when you were nursing and singing to the
child, you appeared such a bright and joyous creature, that it seemed as if
nothing but brightness and happiness could ever come where you were. I really
could not help thinking that if only that young fellow who has been so fortunate
as to touch your fancy, had seen you yesterday, he could not long have remained
obdurate.
(p.
280)
“What? whom do you mean!” cried Nannie.
“Am I not right in understanding your expression of a wish to return to Soudan,
as an admission that there is some one there to whom you are attached? Well,
now, coupling this with your liking for my house, I have been thinking that if
the gentleman in question be really worthy of you, instead of your going back to
Africa, I will send for him to England, and you shall have my house, or one just
like it, for your own.”
“But – but ––” gasped Nannie, “I did not mean that I liked your house for
itself. I liked it for your being in it. There is no one in
“My dear Nannie, I thought I was showing that I cared, not a little, but a big
bit, for you when I proposed to do all I could to make you happy.”
“Care for me when you would give me to another! No, no, that is not caring.
Caring means wanting all for oneself. It means love, and jealousy too, for no
love is without that.”
“If ever a woman were to care for me, Nannie, the last thing I should expect
from her would be jealousy. I should not give her cause. Surely you are not of a
jealous disposition? For jealousy and happiness cannot possibly exist together;
and I am sure you would prefer to give happiness.”
“Oh, yes!” she exclaimed; “but I can be very naughty, sometimes; I know I can,
and shall. But I know I can be very good and nice, too, at others, to make up.
Why, do you know, I think it is partly because I am sure to be so naughty as to
make him want sometimes to get rid of me, that I shall insist on my husband
marrying me for altogether at once, when I do marry.”
“I dislike the idea of limited liability marriages as much as you do,” returned
Criss; “but even other kinds are not absolutely irrevocable, you know. Good
behaviour is always
(p.
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necessary, just as in other partnerships. But
Nannie, it is not as a safeguard against a true and genuine nature that such
release is permitted, but against falsehood and insincerity. And it is not in
you to exhibit those.”
“I like you to praise me,” said Nannie, simply; “It helps me to be good.”
“Tell me truly and seriously, Nannie. Do you think you would be perfectly
contented and happy if you were to come and live altogether in my house, and
take care of it as you do of Bertie’s, and let me take care of you as my own
dear little wife?”
Nannie uttered a sharp cry, and gasped out, –
“Do you mean it? Is it for real love of me, or only for pity?”
And without waiting for his answer, or rather, perhaps, reading it in his eyes,
she fell in a swoon upon the floor of the arbour, in which they were sitting.
*
*
*
*
*
“I fear, Bertie, you must consent to lose the services of your fair housekeeper.
Nannie declares that she likes my house better than yours, and has promised to
come and keep it for me. I grant you that I have driven a hard bargain with her,
for I have made her promise also to be my wife.”
And the young pair stood before Bertie as before a father, to receive his
congratulations and blessing, which were given in no niggardly fashion.
When Nannie, almost borne down with the weight of her happiness, had retired, he
said to Criss, –
“Does she know all?”
“She knows nothing,” he answered; “but takes me for myself.”
(p. 282)
CHAPTER IV
AVENIL was overjoyed. With work and a
wife, he held Criss’s sanity assured. The female part of his family was less
pleased. Though kind to them as any brother, Criss had never manifested such
preference for any of the girls as could justify expectation of a closer
connection. Nevertheless, but for the intrusion of Nannie, there was no knowing
what might not have happened.
However, no Avenil could entertain a petty feeling. They were of the sort of
people who, if they err, err through strength, and not through weakness. It was
probably the impression they produced, of having natures so strong and complete
in themselves, that led to the comparative indifference with which they were
regarded by the opposite sex. Ordinarily, women like to be wanted. But an Avenil
man never gave a woman the impression that he had any need of her. And an Avenil
woman was endowed with too robust a faculty of self-help, to suggest to men the.
idea of tenderness. They might and did contract alliances, which were productive
of a considerable amount of solid, sensible happiness; but the passion of love
came not near them. Between such love as they felt or inspired, and passion, was
precisely the same interval, in kind and degree, as between talent and genius.
The two points the feminine part of the family mainly discussed now, were, –
Was Criss really and properly in love, and after what fashion? and, was Nannie
“good enough” for him?
Certainly, Nannie was as great a contrast to them as could possibly be. They, so
complete in themselves as to make the suggestion seem absurd that there was room
about them for any complementary addition. She, so palpably incomplete, so
unable to stand alone, so essentially complementary in her whole structure of
character and form, and therefore in her unlikeness to men so suggestive of
likeness and fitness – in a
(p.
283)
word, so distinctively feminine – that men
could not help being drawn towards her by the sheer necessity of their nature.
Of course, Criss had made no such critical analysis either of Nannie, “or of the
feeling which impelled them towards each other. But he came to understand it all
from experience; and the insight thus given him into the true nature of the
relations of the sexes, was to him a further revelation than any he had
previously attained concerning the fundamental nature and significance of the
Universe. He learnt, too, what he had before but dimly apprehended, the truth of
the old saying, that “Woman is not lesser man, but diverse,” so that the more a
woman is a woman, the less is she a man.
On one point the whole of the Avenils took the same view, and held it strongly.
They thought that by marrying Nannie, in the first instance at least, by a
contract of the first class, Criss was running a great and superfluous risk. To
put it out of his power to get rid of her at his own will, they urged, was to
hazard too much on an unknown chance. Even with people trained to civilization
from infancy, and whose every thought and action were familiarly known, marriage
was a lottery, owing to the impossibility of forecasting the influence it would
have on the character of an individual. How much more so, then, in the case of
one of whom nothing was known save that she was utterly undisciplined and
self-willed.
Criss, however, would listen to no suggestion of the kind. He would give himself
wholly, or not at all. He could not conceive of the fair creature he had so
often saved, and whose whole heart was so evidently his, as making herself
liable to repudiation for bad behaviour. Neither did he think of her as one
whose spirit could be subdued by any amount of liability. But, be she what she
might, he had all faith in the power of the true and honest affection he should
give her, to mould her into complete harmony with himself.
Intense as was the satisfaction which Criss derived from Nannie’s unrestrained.
abandonment to the impulses of her emotional nature, in the direction of
affection, the unexpected
(p.
284)
difficulty he found soon after their marriage
in making her comprehend that a man’s nature possesses sides which do not come
within the category of the emotions, at least, of that of love, involved him at
times in no slight embarrassment. She could not, or would not understand that he
could have duties which must occasionally take him from her side, or friendships
which bore no rivalry to his love for her.
With her nature, so far as it went, Criss felt that he coincided entirely. But
his nature extended far beyond hers in every direction. And at this she
rebelled, for she could not see why it should be so. No small nature ever can
see how narrow it is, intense though it may be within its own limits. Her
dissatisfaction found vent in the cry –
“All of me wants you, and only a part of you wants me!”
Criss was sanguine, however, that under his loving tuition she would grow.
As time went on, her expressions of regret at his occasional absences took the
form of strong opposition to all absence whatever. It was not enough for her
that she always accompanied him when practicable. Neither was she content with
burdening him with reproaches because he did not decline all business or other
engagements which took him from her. She was jealous even of the engagements
themselves.
“Why, Nannie darling,” he said one day to her, in answer to her remonstrances,
“what would become of you and your husband, supposing you had married a man who
had to earn his living by working away from home?”
She evaded an answer by saying that Gris? had no need to leave home to earn a
living.
“But it is equally a duty,” he pleaded, “for a man to fulfil his obligations in
the world, whether he be rich or poor. The world would never get on otherwise.”
“But I don’t care for the world,’’ she returned. “I only care for you. If you
loved me properly, you would not care for anything beside me.”
“Do you really mean that I do not love you properly?”
“You don’t love me as I love you.”
(p.
285)
“You don’t mean to say that you love me when you distress me, and try to
humiliate me by persuading me to forfeit my self-respect?”
“How self-respect?”
“Why, by detaining me from duties I am in honour pledged to fulfil.”
“Is it your duty to go where there are other women?”
“Sometimes.”
“Well, that is what I cannot bear, that you should look at, or speak to, any
other woman than myself.”
“Do you know, Nannie, that the feeling you are describing is called by one of
the ugliest names in language? We mentioned it once when talking together,
before we were married, or engaged. Do you remember?”
“If you mean
jealousy, I am jealous of you, and I am not
ashamed to own it.”
“You ought to have a better opinion of the power of your charms. But do you
really think you have reason to be jealous?”
“Reason! I hate the word. Never talk to the woman you love, of reason!”
“Nannie, I must have an answer. Do you consider that I give you cause to be
jealous of me?”
She was on the point of uttering an animated yes, but the unwonted sternness of his
manner prompted her to change her yes to “No,” and to accompany the
negative with a pout, by which she intended to indicate that all she had said
was in pure wilfulness, and that she wanted him to kiss her and be friends
again. Her similar exhibitions on previous occasions had always terminated thus;
but this time Criss thought it would minister to the happiness of both of them
were he to postpone his coming round for a little while. So he said very
gravely, –
“Nannie, love is impossible where there is no respect. To be jealous of me is to
insult and outrage me. Never pretend to be so again, unless you can show me
grounds for the accusation.”
(p.
286)
The pout faded from Nannie’s lips, as with a frightened an she said, –
“You should not take so seriously what I said. I cannot conceal my feelings; and
only wanted to show you how much I love you. I won’t be naughty any more, I
promise. I do not mean anything by what I said.”
And then with all the sweet and womanly arts which instinct had taught her to
perfection, she insisted on his petting and making much of her, and
recapitulating all her charms – a theme of which she never tired – and she
meanwhile was so soft and clinging, and withal so childlike and simple in her
affectionateness, that he perforce admitted that, however naughty she might
sometimes be, surely no one ever better repaid petting than his Nannie – for a
short time – a qualification which brought out the pout that required so much
kissing to reduce it.
In the hope of wearing out her craving for his exclusive companionship, Criss
endeavoured to accustom her to social intercourse with his friends at the
Triangle and elsewhere. In this way he hoped to turn to good account her love of
admiration, a love-of which she made no affectation of concealment from him; for
she often entertained him with her narratives of the effect she produced upon
the men by her beauty, and upon the women by her skill in dress. Criss had a
special reason for desiring to wean her in some degree from his own society. it
was becoming necessary for him to revisit Soudan, and he dreaded the effect
which the separation might produce upon her, unless she had the solace of some
congenial companionship in his absence. There were very many reasons why he
should not take her with him. In the occasional short aërial excursions he had
of late taken her, she had shown an excitability which, to use the words of
their physician, “It was not desirable to encourage.” And the climate of the
plains in which Criss’s business lay, was too trying for Europeans. Besides,
while absent he would be always on the move.
He hoped to attach her sufficiently to some of his friends to make her willing
to receive them as visitors, and exercise
(p.
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hospitality towards them in her home. But
when he ran over the list, there was not a person in it against whom she did not
raise an objection. And he soon learnt that to say a word in favour of any one
else on any score whatever, was to find fault with her. The discovery that she
was likely to become a mother filled him with joy, as much for the hope it gave
him that her condition of mind was the result of her condition of body, and
would pass away with it, or that, at any rate, her promotion to the dignity of
parent would bring with it the needed maturity of character; as for the pleasure
with which he could contemplate the blending of his own and Nannie’s lineaments
in their offspring.
There was ample time for him to make his visit to Soudan before Nannie was
likely to be taken ill, and he cast about for some method of gaining her assent
which should not arouse her excitability and opposition. “Could she only once
see her-self as she makes herself appear to me,” he thought, “she surely would
be cured.”
A remark of her own respecting some theatrical performance she had lately
witnessed, suggested the Stage as a possible agent in her education. Without
letting her know he had a hand in it, he obtained for one of the periodical
performances in the theatre of the Triangle, the selection, of a very clever
comedy, the purpose of which was to exhibit the sorrows of a man under the
infliction of a jealous wife. It was one of the well-known series of educational
dramas by which, through the consummate art of their construction, the highest
moral teaching is conveyed without the audience being made aware that anything
beyond mere amusement is designed.
To this Criss took Nannie, and so life-like and apt were some of the scenes,
that he feared she would accuse him of a purpose in taking her, and perhaps in
having a hand in the making of the play itself. But Nannie enjoyed it immensely,
laughing heartily at all the points. And the only reflections she expressed
afterwards were, as regarded the unhappy husband, that he was a fool to trouble
himself about a woman who could behave in such a manner and as regarded the
wife, that she
(p.
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did not deserve to have a husband at all,
much less a good one who gave her no cause for jealousy. Of self-consciousness
Nannie, to Criss’s amazement and disappointment, exhibited not a particle: so
utterly was she unaware that she had been gazing upon herself, as it were, in a
mirror. And so completely was the lesson lost upon her, that she even remarked,
–
“Oh, how I should hate myself if I thought I could be such a woman as that!”
Clearly self-knowledge and self-examination were neither forte nor foible of
Nannie’s; and it became a serious problem with Criss how to influence a nature
so inaccessible to reproof. Perhaps by giving her credit for a virtue which she
did not possess, he would be ministering to her acquisition of it. What if he
sought to enlist her sympathies-for some friend in difficulty or trouble?
An opportunity presented itself. He told Nannie that Bessie Avenil, after being
united for some time to a man morally her superior, but physically and mentally
her inferior, had resolved to dismiss him, on the ground that he did not come up
to her idea of what a husband should be. And he appealed to Nannie as a woman of
feeling, whether it would not be a friendly act to try and save Bessie from the
remorse she would be sure to feel for having deserted one whom she had brought
to love her, simply because, though thoroughly good, he was a somewhat feeble
specimen of a man.
“What does she say for herself?” said Nannie.
“She says that when she married she was young and ignorant; but that now that
she knows what a husband means, she intends to have a good one.”
“There’s sense in that,” said Nannie.
“But not the tenderness or sympathy you would show for a husband who needed your
consideration?”
“What does she say to that?”
“That sympathy is all very well, but that she prefers justice – justice to
herself – and believes justice to oneself is the first of moral duties.”
“And what do you want me to do?”
(p.
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“It occurred to me that, before the final rupture takes place, you might get her
here, and show her, by your own example, what an affectionate wife should be to
a man.”
“To a man who doesn’t love her?”
“He does love her, utterly; only she is so full of life and health, that he
cannot live at the same pace. You could teach her to hold herself in.”
Nannie shook her head.
“He loves her so well,” pursued Criss, “that he is ready, out of regard for her
happiness, to sacrifice his own and relinquish her. You would have been touched
by the tone of distress in which he told me how deeply he felt his own
unworthiness, and inability properly to fulfil the position he held towards her.
But he counted his happiness as nothing in comparison to hers.”
“Have they any children?” asked Nannie.
“Only one; a girl.”
“And what becomes of it if they separate?”
“If they separate for incompatibility merely, it will spend half its time with
each parent alternately. Where there is a serious defect of character or conduct
on one side, the law assigns the sole charge of the child to the other.”
“It is just as I said,” she exclaimed, after a brief pause. “He does not love
her, or he would not give her up for any-thing. He isn’t a man, and she isn’t a
woman; at least, not what I call a woman. If she was a woman, she would make him
love her just as she wished, in spite of everything. I would, if it was me. I
dare say she is not worth troubling about. What makes you take such an interest
in her? Isn’t one woman enough for you to be concerned with?”
“Too much, Nannie, if she requires me to abandon or neglect the friends of a
life.”
“If you were properly in love you would have no room for friends.”
“Were I to be indifferent to the welfare of those who have always befriended me,
I should be a base wretch, and unworthy of love. You don’t mean what your words
imply, Nannie
(p.
290)
darling. I should be cruelly distressed if I
thought you did. I should be forced to think you did not love me, or else that
you were not worth loving, if I thought you did not care for my character, my
honour, or my happiness.”
“What do you want, then, with any woman besides me?”
“Have I not explained? Do you not understand the meaning of words?”
“I understand what you mean by friends, and I won’t have it. l don’t want any friends. Why should
you?”
“Well, Nannie, I will say good morning to you for the present. I trust I shall
find you in a different mood on my return. It was a great mistake of mine to
appeal to your consideration for another when you have none for me.”
She was silent until he reached and opened the door, and then she exclaimed –
“There’s a man! pretends to love me, and goes away without a kiss!”
For the first time this appeal failed to arrest him. She darted after him,
crying –
“Criss! Criss! how can you be so cruel to your poor Nannie, who loves you so?”
“Nannie,” he said coldly, “I want to be loved in deeds as well as in words. If
this passes your power, pray tell me so plainly.”
Throwing her arms round him, and clinging to him with her whole lithe form, she
exclaimed –
“Why, how can I better show that I love you than by being jealous of you?”
Making no response to her pressure, but speaking still in the same measured
tone, he replied –
“Love and jealousy are two things wide asunder as the poles. Love means
confidence, devotion, trust. Jealousy means self-love, and its indulgence is the
worst form of selfishness; for it is a selfishness that takes the most pains to
make others miserable.”
“I am sure you are not miserable with me,” she said, in one of her most winning
ways. “If o one ever said I was selfish before.”
(p.
291)
“Then do not force me to say it now. But endeavour, while I am gone, to think
over the cause you have given me for pain, and resolve to be what I wish you in
future.”
“It’s no use. I can’t think of anything when you are away from me, besides you –
and those women! Oh! I will he revenged on them!” she added, with a dangerous
gleam in her eyes.
With a quick movement, and before she was aware of his intention, Criss had
Carried her back into the room, and deposited her on a sofa. Then, ringing the
bell violently, he summoned a servant, and bade him hasten with all speed for
the doctor. He then flung himself into a chair at a distance from her, and with
knotted veins and heavy breathing, sat motionless, awaiting the doctor’s
arrival.
Nannie lay so still for several moments as to surprise him. Her hand was over
her face. Presently he caught sight of her eyes glancing at him between her
fingers. seeing he was watching her, she said –
“Why have you sent for the doctor? Are you ill?”
The evidently affected unconsciousness of her tone gave Criss a keener pang than
he had yet felt. Could it be that she was utterly heartless? He would ascertain
by letting her suppose by his silence that he was ill.
Failing to obtain an answer, she began to cry.
“She does not care whether I am ill or not. She is thinking only of herself,”
was his inward commentary on this new phase. So he remained mute and took no
notice of her tears. During this interval he changed his design. He had sent for
the doctor, believing that Nannie’s conduct could only be attributable to some
temporary excitement of brain, which required to be allayed by medicine. seeing
that she was deliberately acting a part, he resolved on another expedient.
Nannie, on her part, finding her tears unheeded, judged it time to try some
other means of attracting his attention.
“Criss! Criss!” she almost screamed, “I am crying, and you don’t come to comfort
me!”
Still no response.
(p.
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“Criss! Criss! what do you want with the doctor? If it is for me, I won’t see
him! I don’t want him to know how cruelly you treat me;” and then, seeing him
still unmoved, she added –
“Or how naughty I have been.”
The expression of pain on his face did not relax one jot, although Criss was
beginning to suspect that her conduct was simply the result of a determination
to make herself completely his master. He had commenced to give her a lesson for
her good, and would not flinch from carrying it out, cost him what it might.
His prolonged silence was beginning really to alarm her when the doctor entered.
Wondering what was coming, Nannie shrank into a corner of her sofa.
Criss rose, and having greeted the doctor with grave courtesy, said in a low and
anxious tone, as if in the room of one stricken with alarming illness, –
“I wish, Dr. Markwell, to consult you respecting the effect likely to be
produced on a child, by the mother’s giving way during the period antecedent to
its birth to violent and unreasonable tempers. Is its health of mind or body in
any way dependent on her conduct? I wish you to speak without reserve, as I have
the most serious motive for asking.”
Looking from one to the other, and divining the” situation, the doctor said that
the effect would depend in a great measure upon the period concerned; and then
in a low tone he put sundry questions to Criss. Having got his answer, he looked
very grave, and said, aloud, –
“It is the most sacred of a mother’s duties to repress, not merely all violence
of demeanour, and everything that may excite her, during the period in question;
but also every thought and disposition which she does not wish to see shared by
her off-spring. A neglect of duty in regard to the former may result in the
production of idiots or cripples. But even this is not the greatest misfortune
which can befall a family. The worst unhappiness comes from the depraved and
ungoverned characters which are apt to be engendered by a neglect of the latter
duty.”
(p.
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“Have you anything in the shape of a sedative that you can recommend to my wife?
She has become liable of late to accessions of excitement, which cause me much
anxiety both for her own health and that of her unborn child.”
“Doctor!” cried Nannie from her hiding-place in the sofa cushions. “I won’t take
anything but poison. Send me some poison, and I shall be grateful to you. Oh, my
father! my father! why did you give me such a wicked disposition!”
“You see, doctor, that she needs your care, and that more than is possible while
you are under different roofs. Now I have a proposition to make to, or rather a
favour to ask of you. I am obliged, much against my wish, to be absent from home
for a space of probably three or four weeks. ‘Will you either allow my wife to
dwell with you, under the care of yourself and Mrs. Markwell, or will you
transport yourself and your whole family hither, and take care of Nannie during
my absence?”
This speech brought Nannie into full possession of her faculties. It was the
first time that Criss had spoken of his absence as an event near at hand. She
sat up and gazed wildly at him with an expression full of agony and
apprehension.
This demeanour was not lost upon Criss. Regarding it as one of the artifices by
which she sought to establish her sway over him, and convinced of the absolute
necessity, if they were ever to be happy together, of exhibiting the futility of
her endeavour, he continued his address to the doctor.
“I am sanguine, doctor, of the good results which will flow from my temporary
absence. The paroxysms which cause me so much anxiety and alarm, have steadily
increased in frequency, duration, and intensity, until they threaten permanently
to impair her constitution, physical as well as mental. So bad have they become,
that even should my absence have no good effect, it at least can do no harm. I
need not tell you how great will be my gratitude should the kind care and
professional skill of yourself and your wife be the means of restoring to my
beloved wife the health, and to both of us the happiness, which this terrible
malady has so woefully impaired.” And Criss’s voice faltered as he spoke.
(p.
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The doctor began saying that he and his wife would gladly do all in their power
to bring about so desirable a result, and he would leave it to her and Mrs.
Carol to decide which of the two plans proposed would he most convenient and
agreeable. But Nannie interrupted him, declaring that she would have nothing of
the kind; that she hated medical women, who knew all a woman’s little weaknesses
by their own; and that if Criss chose to go away and leave her, she would follow
him. She knew by her own experience, how ready he was to pick up women and carry
them about in his Ariel; and she was not going to give him the chance of doing
so while she was his wife.
Criss could not help feeling a certain sensation of amusement at the unexpected
and ingenious perversity of this new attack. But he said to the doctor, –
“You see, doctor, for yourself what a task you will be undertaking. It is clear
that it will never do for you to have her in your own house. These high walls
are the only safe asylum. I intend, when you have transferred your family
hither, to instruct my servants to take their orders from you alone. You will
thus be able to control the movements of your patient.”
“It shall be as you wish. May I ask when you propose to take your departure?”
“So soon as you are installed here. I have, out of consideration for my wife,
already delayed it too long. The sooner I go, the sooner I shall return. I wish
to spend the last month before her confinement with her. Of course, if you
report her state to be such that my presence will be prejudicial, I will delay
my return.”
“You call yourselves men,” exclaimed Nannie, “and you conspire to drive a poor
woman mad.”
“On the contrary,” said Criss, “we conspire – do we not, doctor? – to keep a
poor woman sane, who by yielding to wanton tempera is driving herself mad. We
conspire, too, on behalf of the unborn, as well as of the living.”
The renewal of this suggestion made Nannie once more hide
(p.
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her face in the cushions, and sob. Presently
a voice came from the depths, saying, in a subdued tone –
“Tell me when the doctor is gone. I want to speak to you.”
Criss whispered a few sentences to the doctor, and dismissed him. He then seated
himself beside Nannie on the sofa, and awaited her pleasure.
Presently she looked up, and finding herself alone with Criss, said –
“You don’t know how to treat a woman. You will never conquer me in that way.
Such a fuss to make about my loving you well enough to be jealous of you, and
not like your leaving me! Why, I have done nothing, absolutely nothing. Mattie,
my sister, was ten times worse than ever I have been. I have seen her strike
him, and pull his hair out by handfuls. And Frank didn’t make half the fuss you
have made over a few words said by poor little me.”
“Poor Frank, what a happy release the plague must have brought to him.”
“Not a bit of it. He was very happy with Mattie.”
“There is no accounting for tastes. He must have been very differently
constituted from me.”
“He understood women ––”
“Women! yes. But not furies and maniacs.”
“Women who are not logs, like the tame creatures who pass for women here. Poor
Frank! he loved Mattie properly, and was very happy with her in consequence.”
“I wish I knew his prescription.”
“It was a very simple one.”
“Tell me.”
“It cut all her naughtiness short, and made her good for a long time together.”
“What was it?”
“I – I – can’t tell you.”
“Do.”
Nannie covered her face with her plump white arm, and bending her head a little
downwards, looked with coy shyness
(p.
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at Criss through the angle of her elbow.
Presently the magic words came falteringly forth, and she said, speaking in the
smallest of voices –
“He beat her!”
Criss turned away with the impatient air of one who has been tricked; but Nannie
exclaimed –
“He did; I assure you he did. It is the only way with women like us. We must
fear the man we love, to be good to him. If he had not beat her, she would have
made him as unhappy as – as I have made you. And she was the happier for it
too!”
“Am I to infer, then, that you wish me to follow his example?”
“I often think I should behave better if you were to beat me, and make me afraid
to be naughty. Not with the fist or a stick you know, but a little thin whip, or
switch, which only hurts without doing any injury. Oh, I have often and often
seen Frank trying to kiss away the red w-ales from Mattie’s lovely skin, while
the tears were running down both their faces. Oh, they never were so happy as
then.”
“I expect my wife to be a reasonable being, and influenced by other
considerations than those of bodily chastisement. Has affection no influence
upon you? Are you not amenable to a fear of unhappiness, as well as of physical
pain – my unhappiness as well as your own?”
“You speak to a woman as if she were a man, and open to reason! I tell you a
woman who loves is not a reasonable being, and you must not deal with her as
one.”
“A man who loves shrinks from making her he loves unhappy.”
“Then why do you make me so?”
“I do not make you so. You make yourself so by indulging baseless fancies.”
“Baseless! when you speak to other women!”
“Well, we will see what our medical friends can do for your disease. I give it
up.”
“Oh, don’t let them come and live here. If you must go
(p.
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away, let me stay here by myself. I will try
to be good – I will indeed. And you mustn’t be angry with your Nannie for loving
you too well.”
CHAPTER V
THE vast works in progress in Soudan
were exciting widespread attention and interest. Already had the Empire of the
African Plateau made such an advance in importance and civilization, that the
probability of its early admission into the Confederacy of Nations was
everywhere allowed. Such promotion as this was beyond the dreams of the previous
sovereigns of Soudan, and the people were elated beyond measure at the prospect.
Not only would such admission be a recognition of their claim to rank among
civilized communities, but it would be worth a large percentage in the money
markets of the world. Could Criss and the Emperor secure this admission, They
would gain for the country an advantage greater than that which they had in vain
sought from the Stock Exchange of Jerusalem. Even the people of Soudan now saw
the impolicy of their once proposed repudiation.
Of course, as in every partially civilized community, there were people whose
vested interests were opposed to the new state of things, and who thought that
their interests ought to be paramount. In order to be recognized as sufficiently
civilized to be admitted to the Confederation, it is indispensable that the
candidate-nation prove itself amenable to the ordinary processes of reason in
its various public departments, and that all parts of its system be consistent
with each other. Thus, there is no chance of entrance for a people whose
institutions rest avowedly on a basis of mere tradition. For the civilized world
has learnt by experience that experience is the only trust-worthy basis of
stability, whether in public policy, religion, or morals. For instance, to have
a national church, or not to have
(p.
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one, is in the view of the Elective Council
of the Confederation a matter of indifference; but the existence of a Church, or
of any other public institution, resting avowedly upon a traditional or dogmatic
basis, is fatal to the chances of the claimant.
Not only was Soudan at this time inadmissible on the ground of its having a
national church of this kind, but it carried its defiance of logic and
consistency to so incredible an extent as to maintain two national institutions,
directly opposed to each other, both in principle and in practice. For, in its
National schools, which were derived from the Mahommedan period of the country,
it gave an education which consisted, as with us, in the cultivation of the
intelligence and moral sense of the children; while in its National Church,
which dated from the change to Christianity, and owed its existence to the
personal influence of the royal house of Abyssinia, it denounced the human mind
and conscience as delusive and pernicious, and claimed the assent of all to a
theory of the Universe and system of theology which failed utterly to commend
themselves to those faculties. Thus, at this time Soudan was in the category of
what the Council is accustomed to schedule as Lunatic Nations, inasmuch as it had no
settled principle of action, and pulled down on one side all that it upheld on
the other.
Enlightened by Criss, it was now the Emperor’s ambition to remove this stigma,
by placing the national preacher in accord with the national schoolmaster. His
pride revolted against the notion of his being regarded by the highest
civilizations in the world as but a Sovereign of fools. And pride, Criss found
to his regret, was the leading motive to which his cousin was amenable. Next to
pride, and obstinacy on behalf of his own way, came the sentiment of affection
for his cousin. In the conflict between these feelings, Criss not unfrequently
found himself compelled to appeal to his pride in order to turn the balance in
the desired direction. It was by acting on this motive that the native
combativeness of the young ruler had finally been enlisted on behalf of radical
reform. Having once resolved to win the approbation of
(p.
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very hostility of the vested interests, which
fattened upon the existing system, served to strengthen his purpose. To this end
he listened eagerly to all that his cousin had to say on the subject.
Educated under the impression that the Priest was the natural and indispensable
sustainer of the Crown, he was surprised, as well as delighted, at the array of
incontrovertible evidences whereby Criss showed him that the Priest has never
supported anything save for his own ends, and that the whole history of
priesthoods, of whatever age, country, or religion, shows those bodies to be, by
their very nature and constitution, utterly and irredeemably selfish, making
their own aggrandisement, individually or corporately, the one object and aim of
their policy. Criss wound up his homily on this occasion by saying, –
“Ah, if they had only striven for man’s regeneration here, with but a fraction
of the persistency with which they have invoked the hereafter! But, as it is,
there is no cruel or degrading superstition, from the belief in demons and
witchcraft, to that in human sacrifices and eternal torture, that they have not
fostered and turned to their own account. I repeat but a trite historical truth
when I say that the priest, as priest, is both enemy of man and libeller of God;
and that the throne which has such a foundation can only be that of a tyrant.
This, so far as the people are concerned. With regard to the ruler, it, is the
least secure of bases. For the very theory of Ecclesiasticism is subversive of
all civil government. In order to be the ruler and redeemer of your people, you
must begin by effacing every vestige of sacerdotalism from the public
institutions of the country. Of course, privately, people may hold and teach
what they please. But the State, can recognize and support only what is
consistent with the equal liberty of all and its own supremacy; and no
ecclesiastical system is that.”
“But my own throne,” interrupted the Emperor, “what becomes then of my divine
right? They have always upheld that.”
“Divine right,” replied Criss, “is but a dogma. Real right
(p.
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has no need of dogma. If use and experience
do not justify your throne’s existence, no authority of dogma will do so, and
the sooner it is subverted the better. But the fact is, where a church is
supreme, neither sovereign nor people can be free. It is never content until it
has subjugated the souls and bodies of men. Such is the nature, avowed or
concealed, of all priesthoods.”
“When you urge me to take up a position in antagonism to the priesthood, do you
not mean the church?”
“That is the very confusion that nearly cost
(p.
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piece throughout, for it will have its bases
in the human mind and conscience, and its apes in the sky, with God and
idealized Humanity.”
“But what,” asked the Emperor, “am I to reply to my clergy when they make
reproachful appeal to me to know what will become of the truths of religion when
their teaching is no longer compulsory?”
“Say,” replied Criss, “precisely what becomes of the truths of science when
unshackled by foregone conclusions. They will have free course and be glorified.
Religion will cease to be a worship of the dead, and become the apotheosis of
the living, the actual. Whatever is good and useful and necessary, can be shown
to be so by evidence, without aid from dogma. We want no authority beyond that
of evidence to make us hold that the earth goes round the sun. Indeed, until men
abandoned authoritative tradition on that subject, they believed a false-hood.
No, the bases of that which is good, useful, and true, must be perpetually
verifiable, otherwise it ceases to be good, useful, and true.”
“But surely a national church implies a national religion?”
“By no means. There can be no such thing as a national religion, any more than a
national set of truths or facts, or a national system of medicine, science, or
art. There may, and should be, a national institution for educating the
faculties which are devoted to such ends, and for extending such education, as
only a national institution can do, to every comer of the land; but the phrase
‘national religion’ involves as great air absurdity as the phrase ‘national
God.’ ”
“My clergy will have a good deal to unlearn,” remarked the Emperor.
“So had ours. Yet they did it. But those who care for Humanity and Truth will
not mind that.”
The Emperor shook his head.
“Vested interests are strong and selfish,” he said. “I can do a good deal to
make it worth their while, but I shall have a nest of hornets about me.”
(p.
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CHAPTER VI
IT was mainly the activity of the
“nest of hornets” alluded to by the-Emperor, that made Criss’s presence in
Soudan indispensable. The physical curse of the country might be dealt with by
deputy. Its moral curse must be dealt with in person. The superstition of its
people rendered the prolonged absence of their sovereign’s good genius, as Criss
was popularly called, a hindrance to the designs in progress for their own
benefit. The clergy, seeing their cherished system of thought, or rather no
thought, menaced, denounced the physical improvements, commenced or projected,
as constituting an impious interference with the Divine Will. Such a notion
could be met only by the diffusion of a knowledge of sound reasoning. In
conjunction with some of the more advanced citizens, Criss set to work to found
a propagandist agency for this purpose. Taking for its motto, Free Enquiry and
Free Expression, this institution had for its function the publication and distribution
in myriads of short pithy papers, exposing the absurdities of the popular
superstitions. I happen to have the originals of some of these papers by me, in
Criss’s own handwriting. It may be not amiss to reproduce one or two of them
here, if only to illustrate the mental condition of a people placed by the
Confederate Council in the schedule of Lunacy. The following seems to have been
levelled at the objection just referred to as raised by the priests:
“THE DIVINE WILL
“According to the priests of Soudan, a will that can be thwarted by man.
According to commonsense and the dictionaries, the Supreme Will. People of
Soudan, require of your priests that they be careful of their definitions.”
Another, also in his own hand, was in answer to the reproach of Atheism brought
against the new school. It ran thus:
(p.
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“PEOPLE OF SOUDAN
“Be not frightened by names. There is no Atheist, save he who disbelieves in
cause and effect. To believe in a cause of all things, is to believe in a God.
Respecting the nature of that cause, it is not only lawful but necessary to
differ until determined by positive evidence derived from a due comprehension of
its effects, that is, of Nature. The real Atheists now-a-days are those who
“would banish God from the living present to a dead past.”
And this also:
“SCIENCE; WHAT IS IT?
“Sound knowledge, obtained by accurate observation of carefully ascertained
facts. To reject the scientific method for any other, is to reject fact for
fancy, truth for falsehood.”
Hunting up the records of our own country at a corresponding period of its
history, Criss founded also an agency called, The Church of Soudan
Nationalization Society, in exact imitation of the famous organization which played so important
a part in promoting the Emancipation. In the prospectus which he wrote for the
chief organ of this society, a high-class weekly, also named after its British
prototype, Criss showed the Soudanese how alone they could emulate the example
of the
(p.
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name whereby this course was known, released
The clergy of Soudan, in their alarm at the new movement, sought to strike at
its promoters through the neighbouring peoples. Divining that the Emperor’s
design of regenerating the plateau involved the redemption of the Sahara, they
set to work to stir up the desert tribes, the people of Fezzan, and those
bordering on the Mediterranean, by asserting that it was the intention of the
Emperor, under European influence, to destroy their commerce and power by
bringing in the sea to drown them out. The trigonometrical survey they denounced
as an invention of the Evil One, and liable to be visited with a retribution
such as that which had followed the census of David; and
Such was the position when Criss tore himself from Nannie, whom he had in vain
endeavoured to interest in his work, to make his first post-nuptial visit to
(p.
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cursed by its own sunshine, but with its
As the vast design got wind, all Europe and
(p.
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permeating the limestone bed of the
Avenil and Criss discussed this together. They came to the conclusion that it
was probable, that on making an extensive vertical boring into the
They communicated the notion to the Emperor, who was hereditary chief over a
small oasis, which lay close below the plateau, considerably to the east of Lake
Tchad, and therefore far towards Egypt. He caught at the suggestion, and having
purchased the rights of all the dwellers on the oasis, and removed them to an
estate at a distance, he sent a strong force of labourers, with powerful
excavating machinery, and set them to work to bore for water on a large scale.
The result of the experiment was satisfactory beyond expectation, considering
that the spot selected was by no means one of the lowest parts of the desert.
The water, thus far perfectly fresh and pure, came through in such abundance,
that the whole oasis was flooded, and continued to be so, as well as the
surrounding desert for a considerable distance, until the sands and the sun
prevailed to prevent its further spread.
Students of Science, other than geologists, concerned them-selves with the
doings in the
(p.
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glacial period,” said they, “
“To restore the sea to the Sahara,” exclaimed the savants, “is to bring back the
glacial period to
The question was an immense one. With the climate of Europe would go the
civilization of
Criss, as was his wont, had recourse to Avenil. Avenil had enjoyed the
discussion, but held the fears to be groundless. In the first place, said he,
the sea will be a very shallow and a very warm one, and the bed has been raised
so high, that probably one-half will not be submerged. Of this, however, we
shall be better able to judge when the survey is completed. But there is another
reason. The greatest cold of
The states bordering on the
The determination taken by Criss was to make the experiment,
(p.
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as an experiment to be abandoned in the event
of success proving pernicious. There would be no difficulty about this.
In spite of the opposition of
The spot where the excavation was to commence was from one to two hundred miles
inland. Here, and at numerous points along the route, was collected an army of
labourers, with excavating machinery of gigantic power, and a vast array of
appliances for the task. The plan was to cut a deep broad channel in the solid
limestone bed of the desert to the sea, maintaining the same depth throughout,
so as to make way for an enormous body of water to enter at once. Thus only, it
was held, would the loss by evaporation be supplied. Notwithstanding the efforts
brought to bear upon it, the works would occupy several years.
To Criss’s perplexity, the Emperor did not enter so heartily into this portion
of the scheme. Taking a line of his own, he pretended that he disliked the idea
of an open junction with the
Criss felt that the Emperor had not given the real grounds of his objection, and
urged him further.
The Emperor then said that he was convinced that no single channel could supply
the
(p.
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sure of the water reaching any isolated
portion of the low lands. He proposed to attach in this way both the Atlantic
and the
CHAPTER VII
CRISS’s life was indeed a full one.
While engaged in the regeneration, moral and physical, of a continent, his own
heart was perpetually torn asunder between the two characters alternately
enacted by his wife Nannie.
Two characters, different as those of two women. The one, so ineffably lovely
and loving, winning and kind, in the ecstasy of her ardent nature abandoning
herself wholly to her love, and in the perfection of her adaptation making Criss
feel indeed that if ever woman was made for man, Nannie must have been made
expressly for him.
The other, the result of abandonment, not to love, but to feelings which
converted love itself into a curse. Nannie knew and – felt that Criss loved her
wholly, solely, and truly; but,
(p.
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unaccustomed as she had ever been to exercise
the slightest control over herself, she now gave herself up to the dominion of
her fancies, until, although knowing, and in her calmer moments admitting them
to be but fancies, they became for her more than all facts; more even than all
convictions, which to the female mind are too apt to be far more than facts.
These fancies all took one shape. She understood love only as a monopoly. Her
lover was unfaithful to her if he had friendships, interests, thoughts,
occupations, in which she was not all in all. So far from her love leading her
to take an interest in whatever interested him, it led her at first to exhibit
indifference to, and then vehemently abuse, every object, event, or person
unconnected with her, that he chanced to mention. Slowly and sadly he found
himself driven to a resolution never to allude in her presence to any subject
whatever, save herself. Even his own life-long friends were not spared, though
she was never tired of vaunting her own early associations.
Criss alone saw her under the influence of this side of her character. In
society her brightness and vivacity won immense admiration, and admiration was a
thing which she loved too dearly to forfeit by an exhibition of ill-temper.
While the self-control thus manifested abroad led Criss to hope the best for her
sanity, he found no consolation in ascribing her out-rageous conduct at home to
a deliberate disregard for him and his happiness. One of the traits which struck
him as most curious, was the utter indifference she showed to her promises of
reformation, and this only a little while after she had uttered them with such
exhibition of deep repentant sorrow as to win his forgiveness, and make him hope
that this was really the last time.
But though none of his friends as yet were cognizant of his domestic history,
they could not fail to remark that he with-drew more and more from their
society, and that when he did appear, he had little of the serenity and
cheerfulness which had been wont to characterize him. Criss had a good and tried
friend in his neighbour, Dr. Markwell, a physician of high repute, and married
to a medical lady whom also he highly
(p.
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esteemed. But it was only by stealth and
rarely that he ventured to consult them. He feared to excite Nannie’s
suspiciousness and jealousy against even her physician. For the doctor to be
able to influence her, he must retain her confidence. It was thus that when they
met in Nannie’s presence, he affected to give but a qualified assent to whatever
Criss said.
An astute investigator of the maladies of mankind, Dr. Markwell, while assuring
Nannie that it lay with herself to determine her own fate, whether for weal or
woe, inasmuch as it is to a very great extent in the power of an individual to
promote or resist insanity; – while, too, he gave Criss hope that her mind might
be beneficially distracted from its fatal preoccupation by the advent of
offspring, yet in his own mind feared the worst.
He did not, however, consider it his duty altogether to conceal from Criss the
nature of his fears. Having had much experience in prisons, and observed the
effect produced upon the female constitution by-the absence of a habit of
control whether by self or by another, he told Criss. how that when once a young
woman has discovered her power to produce an hysterical paroxysm at will, she is
liable to exercise it for her own gratification, without regard to the distress
she may cause to others; and that, the habit once induced, her own mental and
moral nature is at the mercy of it, and madness in one of its many forms
frequently supervenes.
“It was precisely such a condition of mental intoxication,” he continued, “that
in former times it was the ambition of the religious fanatics of various
countries to produce in themselves or their converts. From the ecstatic
utterances of a pagan sibyl, to the hysterical convulsions of a Christian
revivalist, the condition and its character were the same. It was only when the
law sternly forbade fanatics, who mistook their own ignorance of physiology for
inspiration, to propagate madness – as it before had forbidden pretended
sorcerers to trade upon credulity – that our own country was finally freed from
the disgrace of such scenes. Woman’s nature, however, remains the same. Its
emotional side requires to he counterbalanced by the most
(p.
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carefully developed reason, – reason of her
own, or reason of man. If it is not good for man to be alone, ten thousand times
less is it good for woman to be alone, or uncontrolled by a strong hand. There
are cases in which kindness to her is but unkindness; – in which the sense of
duty needs the stimulus of fear to keep it up to the mark.”
This last observation reminded Criss of Nannie’s strange utterances respecting
her sister, and the regime of physical correction on which she insisted. He
mentioned it, and, in reply to the doctor’s commentary, said, smiling sadly, –
“Well, doctor, if my wife does not mend until I beat her, I fear she must
continue to behave ill until the end of the chapter.”
“Ah, that is because you have a theory which bears no relation to experience,”
returned the doctor. “Forgive me for saying it, but it seems to me self-evident
that if, in order to spare your own feelings, or in deference to a supposed
principle, you abstain from the course best calculated to benefit her, you are
acting selfishly instead of benevolently, and following dogma rather than
experience.”
“How like a speech of Avenil’s!” exclaimed Criss.
“You must understand,” continued the doctor, “That there is among women of
undeveloped intellect, when they have done wrong, a certain craving for
chastisement, growing out of a rudimentary sense of justice. “When a man sees
that he has made a mistake, he manifests his repentance by resolving not to
repeat it. Not so a woman. Half the power of priests over women in old times
consisted in their habit of hearing their confessions and imposing penances. The
husband is the successor of the priest. He must listen sympathetically to his
wife’s confessions, and assign the appropriate penance, or inflict the
appropriate penalty. The less she is able to govern herself, the more he must
govern her. For lack of the husband, it should be the doctor. But I really
consider that the man who compels himself to be harsh to the woman he loves,
solely for her own good, performs the loftiest act of self-renunciation possible
to a finite being. Of course, I do not prescribe extreme
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measures at the very outset. I mean only
that, kindness having failed, the treatment must be changed for one of apparent
harshness. Your wife, for instance, declares that she goes wild with misery the
moment you go out of her sight. Suppose, then, that you exercise her in the art
of self-control by allowancing her, and making the amount of time you pass with
her dependent on her success in repressing that feeling. She might be induced to
cut a paroxysm short if she knew that her indulgence in it would deprive her of
your society for the next four-and-twenty hours or more.”
“Are the constitutional differences between the sexes sp radical and extreme?”
asked Criss.
“They are, indeed. I do not mean to say, however, that man is never as foolish
and irrational as ever woman can be. It is possible that at times he can beat
her in that, as in most other things; but when a man is so, it is in spite of
his sex, and when a woman is so, it is owing to her sex ––”
“All the more cause for extra tenderness and patience, then,” interrupted Criss;
but the doctor went on without heeding.
“The history of woman’s efforts to reverse Nature’s decree is one of the most
curious in the world. Ridiculed by Aristophanes, there are not wanting some to
return to the charge even now, that is, in less advanced countries. Here, our
women have long ago learnt to recognize the fact, and to make the best of it
without striving to alter it. But it was only after the men had consented to
their making the attempt, and so demonstrating their limitations by experience,
that they settled finally into their own place. I confess, as a medical man, I
cannot see how any woman that was wife and mother, ever so mistook her own
nature.”
In one respect Criss followed the doctor’s advice. He ceased to go through the
form of consulting or affecting to please Nannie, in any arrangements he was
obliged to make. He simply said “Nannie, I shall be absent for so many hours, or
days.” And when she broke into angry reproaches, ––” Nannie, you are taking the
very means to lengthen my absence. I have not now for the first time to assure
you that the more you
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keep this temper under, the more I shall be
with you, and the happier we shall be.”
The birth of a child served to restore hope and happiness to both husband and
wife. Criss had looked forward to this event with intense eagerness, believing
that all depended upon it. With such a fact ever present to her, Nannie surely would not
now indulge in fancies.
It was a girl – as Nannie ardently desired – but she was not quite reconciled to
her being called Zöe, after the mother whom Criss had never seen. It made her
jealous of that mother.
Nannie had borne Criss’s absence in
“Take courage. Without you at hand to be distressed at fancies, she will not
care to indulge them. She has not reached the stage at which she would take
delight in tormenting her-self without your being a sharer. I hope she never
may.”
It took some time after his return for the old fancies to show themselves. And
then Zöe arrived opportunely to allay Criss’s reviving anxiety. With the child
came all joy and forgetfulness of past troubles, – such utter forgetfulness on
Nannie’s part of her own extravagances of behaviour, as to kindle in Criss a new
apprehension. But, refusing to entertain it, he gave himself up to the delights
of the situation. This new idea was that Nannie, though supremely endowed as a
woman, was devoid of that essential element of humanity, recognized by him under
the name of Soul. He could not otherwise account
for her utter lack of self-consciousness or sense of responsibility for past
conduct. The child bid fair to resemble its mother, save in one respect. It had
its father’s eyes. Surely, then, his Zöe at least would have a soul!
Nannie made an admirable mother, as she had always boasted she would. The pride
she took in her infant, and consequent eagerness to exhibit it to visitors, led
Criss to hope that she had got the better of another weakness, – namely, her
aversion to all society save that of himself.
In short, so conformable was Nannie to all requirements of
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propriety, health, and motherly perfection,
that Criss began to think that the painful scenes of altercation and violence
which had made him so wretched must have been but an ugly dream, or at worst but
a spasmodic throe of nature over the production of a first-born.
The doctor owned himself surprised at the completeness of the change; but he was
too well habituated to note the distinction between the functional and the
radical to express himself sanguinely about its permanence. He knew the
instinctive liability of young mothers to use their infants as a weapon of
coercion against the timid and doting father. “Thwart and irritate me, and your
child suffers in consequence,” was a dictum he had too often known uttered or
signified in pursuance of an utterly irrational demand.
Fully impressed with the belief that Nannie’s malady had resulted from physical
causes, Criss trusted, by keeping her beyond the influence of those causes, to
prevent a recurrence of the malady. He was so happy now in his own and Nannie’s
happiness in the society of their infant, that it seemed to him an act of
wantonness to do aught that might endanger its continuance.
Nannie thought differently. She longed to multiply her triumphs in the newly-who
domain of maternity, and scoffed at the notion of her being less robust in
constitution than any other of her sex. She even ascribed to coldness and
indifference to her pleasure the tender, self-denying care with which Criss
sought to shield her from aught that might excite and injure her. In short she
manifested all the symptoms of a relapse into the old sad state.
Entreating her to be calm, he sought, by pleading the danger to their child and
their own happiness, to win her consent to a regime that might prevent a return
of the illness which had already caused them so much misery.
“Illness! What illness?” she asked.
“You know all that we went through together, darling, before our little one was
born,” he said. “Well, that was entirely
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the result of your delicacy of constitution.
I love this present happiness too well to risk a return of that evil time.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” she returned. “I was not ill. I was
only jealous, as I had a right to be; and. as I shall be again unless – unless –
Oh, dear Criss! you must not say or imagine such things. Think what will become
of baby, if you upset me, and make me ill with such talk!”
“Ah, if you knew how terrible has been my anxiety, you would not urge me to act
against my better judgment.”
“A fig for better judgment! You mean that you no longer care for me, or you
would let me have my own way in everything.”
“Why, Nannie, what an actress you would have made. You said and looked that
speech to perfection.”
“I was not acting; I meant it.”
“Well, do not excite yourself, I entreat. Trust to me to do what is best. My
precious wife does not know everything that is in the world, or even in her own
constitution, though I acknowledge her to be a wonderful little woman. Some day,
perhaps, when you are quite, quite strong, and I have talked to Doctor, and you
to Doctress Markwell, we can do numbers of things which would be dangerous to
you now. I love my Nannie far too well to rim the chance of losing her,
especially by an imprudence that can so easily be avoided.”
“I know best, without consulting any doctors,” she exclaimed. “I believe you are
in league with them against me. They always say just what you want them to.” And
she broke into a fit of that hysterical sobbing of which Criss had so lively a
recollection and dread.
He had learnt by experience that to attempt to coax her out of those fits by
soft speeches, was as great a mistake as to seek to appease a spoilt child by
giving it everything it cries for. Resuming, therefore, once again the stern
tone and aspect which he had hoped were done with forever, he said, –
“Very well, Nannie; if you can act thus now, it is ample proof that you are
unfit for the liberty which you desire. I intend to regard your power of
self-control as my. index to the state of your health.”
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“I care for nothing of that sort! I am master now! Look here,” she cried
excitedly, and holding the child aloft in her arms; “do you see this? This makes
me master; and I mean to have my own way in everything, or you and your child
will be the worse.” And she glared almost maniacally upon him.
By a movement too sudden for her to thwart, he snatched the child from her, for
he really feared for its safety. Then summoning the nurse, he said, –
“Take the child into your own room, and do your best with it there until the
arrival of the wet-nurse, who will be here tomorrow.” And he placed his arm
around Nannie, to keep her from rushing after the child.
After two or three vain attempts to escape, she sank back into her sofa, moaning
and sobbing.
When they were alone he said, –
“Now take this sedative, and sleep yourself good again. And whenever you find
the naughty fit coming over you, remember that even with the child, I am still
master, and intend to be so.”
“I want my child,” she moaned, piteously.
“Not because you love it,” returned Criss.
“I do love it. It is the only thing I love, now that I hate you.”
And is it because you love it, that you insist upon making yourself so ill that
you could not nurse it without making it ill likewise? Ah, Nannie, dear, you
have yet to learn what real love means, – even the love of a mother for her
infant.”
He prevailed at last, and she took the draught, declaring that she only did so
on condition that she should have the child back in the morning. He did not
accede to the condition, but the night’s rest took such good effect, that the
doctor found no reason to forbid the child returning to her. He complimented
Criss on the wet-nurse, saying it was a master-stroke, and would doubtless bear
repetition if necessary. As for Nannie, she was so terrified by it, that several
days passed before she again ventured to assert her own will in opposition to
Criss’s. Her first utterance to him in respect to the occurrence of that night
was, –
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“It ought to show you how perfect a woman you have got for a wife, when I gave
up my own will for the sake of my child.”
Criss was not aware that she had done so, but thought it was rather for her own
sake; but he did not care to contradict her on a mere matter of opinion. And
happiness was restored, for she forebore for the present to renew the
controversy which had caused the interruption to it.
CHAPTER VIII
CRISS endeavoured to compensate for his
absence from the scene of his operations in
In his care for the remote, whether in time or in space, the near was not
forgotten, and poverty and sickness which, in spite of all the advances made by
civilization, will still occasionally thrust their ugly heads into view, found
in him an ever ready and sympathetic alleviator. In the early days of his
married life, he had hoped to interest Nannie in some of his
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local charities, but had been compelled to
give up the idea. She could scold people for being bad managers, and by
something more direct than implication, praise herself; but her sympathies
seemed incapable of the extension necessary to constitute charity. As she could
not with any advantage accompany Criss on his rounds, and resented his absences,
he had gradually withdrawn in a great measure from making them, leaving his work
to be done by deputy – an office gladly under-taken by the benevolent Bertie.
Of Criss’s wealth, and the employment it gave him, Nannie had long been jealous;
but now her jealousy extended itself to his home occupations, which he carried
on in his study. Not that she was excluded from this apartment, for Criss
delighted in being able to glance from his work to her, as she sat on the soft
carpet playing with the little Zöe; but, unluckily, it occurred to her one day,
that he could not be thinking entirely of her while occupied about other
matters.
“Please explain, Nannie,” he said one day, on her persisting in reproaching him
for his engrossment. “Please explain exactly what it is you wish of me; for I am
really at my wits’ end to understand. Is it that you wish me to cease to be a
man, engaged in work worthy of a man, and to become a woman, with thoughts for
nothing but love?”
“Yes,” said Nannie, stoutly. “I want you to think of nothing but me, – and
little Zöe; but not much of her, or you will make me jealous of my own child.”
“Nannie, there was once a poet who wrote to his lady-love:
“ ‘I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not honour more.’
What do you think of the sentiment?”
“I should have been jealous of ‘honour.’ ”
“You mean, for honour, for his honour.”
“No, I don’t. I mean what I said.”
“There was another poet, who described a wife of whom her husband was so fond,
that he could not tear himself from her side to fulfil the duties to which he
was in honour bound. One
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night he awoke from his sleep to find her
sitting up and murmuring, as she reflected over the career and character he was
losing for her sake, –
“ ‘Ah me, I fear me I am no true wife.’
Would you like to be regarded by your husband
as being ‘no true wife,’ when you seek to detain him from his duties?”
“I should have liked that man,” she said. “He loved his wife as a woman ought to
be loved. He would have owned me to be true woman, if not true wife.”
At this moment Criss’s attention was called off by the sounding of the telegraph
signal. Before he was aware what she was about, Nannie had snatched a heavy
ruler from the table, and rushing to the apparatus, with a tremendous blow
smashed it to pieces.
“There!” she exclaimed, to Criss. “You may think yourself fortunate it was not
your head. It may come to that yet, for your treatment of me.”
Criss had learnt the futility of bandying words with her when such a mood was on
her. Fearing for the safety of the child, he placed himself between her and it,
and summoned the nurse.
“Go at once to Dr. Markwell’s,” he said, when the nurse arrived, “and give my
compliments to him and Mrs. Markwell, and say that I stall be much obliged by
their allowing you and the child to stay there until some other arrangement can
be made.”
“And when am I to see it again?” asked Nannie, as the nurse disappeared, and
Criss closed the door after her.
“Well,” he said, with simulated indifference “I should think a week or two will
probably see you over this attack. It will be time enough to think about it
then.”
And he set himself to examine the mischief done to his apparatus.
“I shall go after my child,” exclaimed Nannie, darting towards the door.
“You cannot leave the room. I fastened the door as I let the nurse out. Your
violence suggested the precaution.”
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“I won’t stay in the house to be outraged.”
“No one wishes you to do so. But you do not leave it until you are in your right
mind, and then desire to do so. It depends entirely on yourself when that may
be.”
“Do you consider me mad, then?”
“You force me to wish sometimes that I did.”
“To wish that I was mad?”
“Yes; I should then be able to account for your behaviour. I would rather have
you mad than bad, heart-broken as it would make me.”
“What does the doctor say about me?”
“He thinks that whatever you may be at present, you are endeavouring to drive
yourself into insanity.”
“Is that Mrs. Markwell’s opinion, too?”
“She says you are no more mad than she is.”
“What, then, does she ascribe my conduct to?”
“Uncontrolled wilfulness and inordinate vanity.”
“Nothing else?”
“Not that I know of.”
“She is right, so far; but she omits the principal cause.”
“May I know it?”
“You do know it. I have told you often.”
“Tell me again.”
“Love for you.”
“Love for me makes you pain and distress me by such conduct!”
“I can’t help it.”
“Nannie, answer truly. Do you try?”
“I have no time, when my feelings move me. You don’t know what it is to have
feelings.”
“I know what it is to have feelings for others. You make me fear that yours are
only for yourself. Are you the happier when you have given way to what you call
your feelings, and made me wretched, and yourself ill and ugly with passion, and
driven your child away ––”
“Ugly! me ugly!” And she ran to a mirror, and took a rapid look at herself; and
then, finding the survey satisfactory,
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she rushed close up to Criss, and gazed with
the most exquisite, winning look imaginable, into his face, and in a pleading
tone asked, –
“Am I really ugly, Criss dear? I don’t think I am. Do you?” and putting her arms
round him she clasped him tightly to her.
“Is it then because you believe no man can resist you, that you act in such a
way?” he enquired. “Believe me, Nannie, even you may try your power too far. You
have done much to prove to me that even my patience is limited.”
“Why, what would you do?”
“Set you and myself free from a tie that has become a bondage.”
“Yes, I know that is what you want. But I won’t let you. I would murder her, and
you, and myself, too.”
“Her! your child?”
“No, no, the woman you want to get free from me for.”
“Oh, I see. You prefer that we should continue to be miserable together, than be
happy apart.”
“You don’t deny, then, that there is a woman for whom you wish to give me up. I
thought you had some motive for trying to kill me by your unkindness.”
“Why should you give me credit for acting from motives, when you deny doing so
yourself?”
“Why should you care about other women when you have me?”
“It seems to give you great pleasure to think that I do so.”
“I think it because you can’t help liking women. You like me too well not to
like women.”
“Oh; and so you would behave better to me if I was less agreeable to you as a
husband!”
“Yes; it comes so natural to you to be nice with me, that I cannot help thinking
you must have learnt it with others.”
“I see. I shall lave to imitate the example of the knight who always clad
himself in his armour before caressing his wife, for fear she should find the
process too agreeable.”
“I know what men are. You don’t deceive me when you pretend
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to be thinking only of my good. You will send
me out of my mind “by it, and then you will be sorry.” And she began to cry.
“There is one thing, Nannie, that you have never yet got properly into your
understanding: – that I took you to be, not my master, but my mistress. So long
as you strive to be both, you shall be neither. That is positive and certain.
You have but to choose.”
“May I choose now?”
“If you please.”
“I – don’t – want – to be your – master.”
“You declare it faithfully, and will not try, in future?”
“Yes,” she said, in a low penitent voice, gazing down while she spoke, and
taking the measure of her own exquisite little foot, as, protruded from beneath
her dress, it lay close along side of his.
He was silent awhile, pondering the propriety of giving her another trial, but
feeling that she had not yet really repented of her recent outrageous behaviour.
Finding that he did not speak, she said, coaxingly, –
“And you will let baby come back?”
“Certainly, the moment you give me reason to feel sure you will continue to be
good.”
“I am good now.”
“For how long?”
“Until I am provoked again.”
“That won’t do. The child shall stay away altogether, rather than grow up to
have its character ruined by witnessing an evil example set it by its mother.”
“You will not rob my child of its mother!” she exclaimed wildly.
“On the contrary. I wish to save you to your child.”
“Are my promises nothing?” she inquired.
“You are as well able to judge of that as I am. How have you kept them
hitherto?”
She hung her head, conscious that she had used words as counters, to be put
aside as worthless as soon as her game played.
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“I shan’t know what to do all day without my baby,” she murmured.
“Yes, we shall miss it dreadfully,” he remarked.
“You won’t care,” returned Nannie.
“Well, not so much as you, because I can go and see it occasionally.”
“So can I,” said Nannie, “I shall go now.”
“That is quite out of the question.”
“Why?”
“Because I have given orders to the contrary.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nannie, I had a most terrible shock one day, not long ago. I overheard, when
out walking, some people talking about us. One said to the other, ‘How is it one
sees Mr. Carol about so little now?’ I dread to tell you the answer; but it may
do you good to know the impression you have produced in the neighbourhood.”
“I am not afraid, what was it?”
“Oh, poor fellow, he is afraid to leave his mad wife.’ ”
“I don’t believe a word of it,” said Nannie. “It is nothing but a story you have
made up to excuse yourself for going about without me.”
“So far from that being the case, it is the greatest disappointment to «me to
find you object so to every thing I have to do, and every person I have to see,
that I am compelled to leave you at home. But where do you imagine that I want
to go without you?”
“I know.”
“Will you not enlighten me? Of course, I should not have told you of that
conversation if I considered you mad.”
“It is no matter what you consider me. You like the society of other people.
That is enough for me.”
“But not in the same way that I like your society. Life has many kinds of
pleasures and engrossments, besides love; which, by operating as distractions,
serve to perpetuate and intensify love. Foremost among them are the charities
and amenities of social intercourse, friendship, and intellectual converse. I
take
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as much delight in these as ever; but I have
withdrawn from them all, in the interests of your happiness.”
“And quite right too. It only makes you despise me for my ignorance when you go
among what you call intellectual people. As for friends, I don’t see what you
want with them, when you have got a wife.”
“Nannie, I expected to find you untaught; but I did not expect to find you
unteachable.”
“Then you are disappointed in me?”
“It is in your power to prevent my being so.”
“If you loved me as you ought, you would think me perfect. But you can’t, when
you are always thinking of some other – some intellectual – woman.” (She uttered the word
with a sneering emphasis.) “Oh, you need not deny it. You won’t convince me. I know it is true, because I dreamt it!
Don’t laugh at me! I won’t be laughed at by you, oh, you cruel, cruel man!” she
added, on seeing the smile evoked by her last speech.
“Why, Nannie, it is the greatest compliment one can pay to a comedian when he
has uttered a good thing well; to laugh heartily. I shall make a note of that,
‘I
know it is true, because I dreamt it,’
and get some dramatic friend to put it into a play. An actress who can say it
exactly as you did, will be sure to bring the house down. But I really must
bring this conversation to an end for the present, as I must go and see how poor
Bertie is.”
“Bertie! what is the matter with him?”
“He was taken very ill in the night, and had to send for a doctor.”
“Why don’t you telegraph instead of going?”
“You have put it out of my power.”
“How?”
“I had already been conversing with him about himself by telegraph. It was the
sounding of his signal that excited you to destroy the apparatus. By my not
replying, he will be thinking that I have gone out, probably to see him.”
“Is this true?” she exclaimed.
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“I know you have never understood my character,” he replied; “but I did not
think you had so utterly misunderstood it as to suppose me capable of
falsehood.”
“I know what I know,” she said, with a menacing air that was anything but
reassuring to Criss. And then with a sudden change of demeanour, added, “But
Criss dear, I must go and nurse dear Bertie. I can be such a good nurse. You
will be so proud of your little wife when you see her in a sick room. “Why did
you not tell me at once, and then all this trouble would have been saved?”
“I was about to tell you when it occurred, in the hope that you would make the
proposal you have just made.”
“Well then, come quick, and let us go to him at once. Shall I ring for the
carriage?”
“I will do that, while you are putting something on,” replied Criss, utterly at
a loss to find the key-note to a character that seemed determined to baffle him.
He could liken Nannie only to a musical instrument, that is perfect in all
respects, save for one note which obstinately refuses to be tuned into harmony,
but so jars whenever and however it is touched, as to produce the most frightful
discord. Only in Nannie’s case, unhappily, the false note seemed to have the
faculty of spontaneous utterance, so that it was impossible to avoid being
tortured by it.
CHAPTER IX
BERTIE’s illness was sharp, but by the
evening the symptoms were so much alleviated, that there was no excuse for Criss
and Nannie to remain with him through the night. In her conduct in the sick
room, Nannie had shown a tact and readiness which delighted Criss; and on their
way home he spoke in such a way as to show her that he was pleased, but without
implying that he was surprised. Nannie’s demeanour during the drive each way,
caused him some perplexity. On the way to Bertie’s her
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lips were set, as if under the influence of
alarm and apprehension. On her return she spoke only in monosyllables, as if his
remarks interrupted a train of thoughts altogether unconnected with their recent
experience. On reaching home she ran into the house without a word, and hurried
upstairs, evidently longing to indulge her feelings by herself.
Anxiously watching, Criss heard a scream, which, however, did not sound to him
like one of distress. In another moment Nannie had run down to him, with the
baby in her arms, exclaiming triumphantly, –
“I have got her back! I have got her back!”
“Yes, so I see. Can you explain it?” he asked with a smile.
“No,” she said, and her face fell, as if feeling less sure that she had cause
for exultation.
“Bring baby into the study, and I will tell you.”
“No, no, not in that room, I can’t go in there. In here.”
“Nannie, darling, I was so pleased by your readiness to go and nurse Bertie,
that I sent for the child back to meet you on your return, as a reward.”
For a moment Nannie looked as if she was on the point of bursting into tears.
Then, with a manifest effort, she restrained them, and after two or three
fluctuations of resolve, said, as if to herself, –
“No, I won’t. I won’t be so weak. He shan’t think he has conquered me. Criss,
you were taken in. It wasn’t goodness a bit that made me want to go to Bertie. I
didn’t believe your story about his being ill. I thought it was an excuse to go
and see some woman. I determined to outwit you by going with you. And now I have
got my child back, without being good.” And she laughed a wild hysterical laugh.
“Well, Nannie,” he said soothingly, “now that you see for yourself how
groundless your fancies are, I hope we shall have an easy time of it for the
future.”
But Nannie had made up her mind not to come round just yet. So she busied
herself about the child, tossing and singing to it, and took no notice of his
remarks.
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Before he could speak again, the telegraph signal in the adjoining room uttered
its alarum. On hearing it, Nannie turned very red, and the more so because she
felt that Criss saw the change in her colour. With a faltering voice she said, –
“I thought it was broken.”
“It has been repaired in our absence,” said Criss. “There are too many poor
fellows depending for their bread on my punctuality, for that to be left
broken.”
And he went to see what messages had arrived while he was out, leaving Nannie
with the child to recover at leisure.
Before retiring for the night, Nannie sat beside Criss on a sofa, her equanimity
perfectly restored.
“I wish,” she said, as she played with his hand, twisting her lovely hair around
it, “I wish you did not expect me to be so good. I am sure I should be better,
if I wasn’t expected to be so. It wouldn’t make you bad, being expected to be
bad; why then should I be made good by being expected?”
“Perhaps it would help you to be good if I were to break out occasionally into a
fit like one of yours.”
“Oh yes, that it would. Do! do it!”
“Well, it did occur to me today that it was a good opportunity to follow the
example of a person I once heard of, who went to take charge of a lunatic. The
patient was subject to attacks of violence, in which he would fling about the
room and smash whatever was handy to him. Well, the first time he did this
before his new keeper, who was a woman of great nerve and resolution, she at
once seized sundry articles of furniture, and dashed them to the ground, with
precisely the same outcries and gesticulations which he had used.”
Nannie laughed gleefully. “Oh, how I should like to have seen that! “she cried.
“But what did he do then?”
“He gazed at her in astonishment, and at length asked her what she did that for.
She replied that, seeing him do it, she supposed it was the way of the place,
and the right thing for her to do. The story goes that he thereupon looked
exceedingly foolish, and never after broke out so again.”
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“And why didn’t you smash the things in your study this morning, too, if you
thought it might cure me?”
“I believe my principal reason was that it was my study. Had it been one of your
rooms now, with all your pretty things about it, I probably should have done a
little smashing.”
After a pause she said, –
“I am thinking, Criss dear, that you ought never to have married at all.”
“Well, Nannie, we live and learn.”
“I mean that you are too perfect by half in yourself. No woman can put up with
absolute goodness. There is not sufficient of the machine about us. Our feelings
can’t stand it. They will have relaxation. It is as bad for us to live with a
person who is perfect, as for a child to live only with grown up folks. I should
be sorry if little Zöe has no one beside you and me to play with. We shall be
quite old then, and she will want the companionship of other children. They
learn so much from each other that all the schools and grown up people in the
world can’t teach them. She is almost six months old now. She will be so dull
without any brother or sister for a companion.” And the sad prospect wrung a
little sob from Nannie’s affectionate heart.
Her melancholy forebodings were happily doomed to disappointment. Zöe was
scarcely eighteen months old when the desired playfellow made its appearance in
the form of a little boy.
CHAPTER X
THANKS to a careful selection of agents
and organization of work, the gigantic operations which Criss was carrying on in
the desert, proceeded rapidly and steadily without requiring more than an
occasional brief visit from him. In the same
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way, the work of freeing thought throughout
Soudan from the chains of superstition, made progress in spite of the vested
interests. When the Emperor had come thoroughly to comprehend the real
significance of the claim set up by the priest-hood to be superior to the civil
government, he had given his countenance to the societies which Criss had
created for the spread of popular enlightenment. The battle was virtually won
when once the people comprehended that, whatever the object of enquiry, there is
but one method – the scientific; inasmuch as it signifies merely accuracy both
in observation of facts and deduction of inferences; so that to reject the
scientific for any other method, is simply to reject accuracy for inaccuracy.
It was thus that the fictions of so-called history, and the inventions of
superstition gradually lost all importance in their eyes, and became but as
certain fossil specimens to the geologist, tokens of a lower stage in the
earth’s development. Students and curiosity-mongers may concern themselves about
such things, but they enter not into the lives of those who judge all matters by
the criterion of the present.
Talking over these things one day, the Emperor expressed to Criss his surprise
that with all his zeal for the enlightenment of the people, he had not attacked
the divinity of the Sacred Talisman. “Surely,” said the young monarch, “if I am
to be a reforming king, and, to use your own phrase, ‘of a piece throughout,’ I
ought openly to discard a superstitious basis for the crown which now affects to
justify its existence by Use.”
Criss acknowledge that he had thought much on this very point, and believing
that the symptoms would disappear as the disease was cured, had judged it best
to commence at the other end. “Let us,” he said, “be content with gradually
developing the intelligence of the people, and they will of themselves then
successively shed one superstition after another. Knowledge is the sole proper
disturber of faith. No use to extinguish the candle before letting in the
sunshine. When once they have knowledge, they will perceive of their own accord
that the Sacred Talisman derives all its real value from its intrinsic worth
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and beauty, and that any mystic addition
servers to diminish rather than enhance its lustre.”
It was thus that the spirit of Emancipated Europe crossed the
If ever the earth had been, as theologians were wont to declare, morally
insolvent, and capable of rehabilitation only by a vast act of grace, it was now
proving, by its conduct in Africa, that it had only suspended payment, not
become utterly bankrupt; that, give it time, and it would pay all.
This last was a train of thought which had been communicated to Criss’s mind
during one of those flights into the Empyrean which had made the chief delight
of his life as a bachelor. It is only because man is impatient with God’s slow
method of working, that he denounces Nature as a bankrupt, who has failed to
fulfil his proper engagements to the great Creditor, and thus fallen short of
the end of his being. We, who can contemplate such lives as some which have
sprung from the earth – yea, even such a life as this I am now too imperfectly
narrating – may well hold that, were there no other like it, no other
approaching it for purity, goodness, and usefulness, one such life is sufficient
to redeem the earth from the charge of being utterly reprobate and fallen, from
the condemnation of
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having existed in vain, and incurred a
sentence of wrath for having failed to fulfil the end of its being; sufficient,
therefore, to reconcile its Maker to it: – just as one magnificent blossom
suffices to redeem the plant that lives a hundred years, and flowers but once,
from the charge of having wasted its existence. Even if the experience of all
past ages of apparent aimlessness and sterility afford no plea in justification
of existence, the one fact, that there is room for hope in the future, may well
suffice to avert the sentence men are too apt to pronounce, – that all is vanity
and vexation, and that the tree of Humanity is fit only to be cut down, that it
cumber the ground no longer.
With the intellectual emancipation of Soudan, the need of social regeneration
became apparent. Here, however, Criss found less readiness to follow an European
lead than in other respects. Neither the women were eager to demand, nor the men
ready to concede a change in the relations of the sexes, little content though
they both were with the existing state of things. A little enquiry showed him
that they had never yet learnt to see the essential distinction between social
and political equality. The women, too, had been taught, by a comparatively
recent event in a neighbouring State, to see the absurdity of their claiming to
be legislators at all, when they could be so only upon sufferance, and must at
all times be incapable of enforcing their decrees. And the men had taken
advantage of the occurrence to laugh to scorn all demands for a change which
seemed to involve anything approaching to identity of function in public more
than in domestic life.
The occurrence in question was as follows: –
Several generations ago, a large district on the west coast of
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“give me men,” supposed to be addressed to
the king by his god) were selected by the merest caprice. But, as civilization
extended to those regions, and the sentiments of men there became softened by
the study of philanthropy and art, unmeaning caprice gave place to a system of
natural selection, whereby all the crippled and imperfect specimens of the
population were periodically chosen to be offered up. The effect of this weeding
out of the inferior types was to produce a race of men and women as superior to
ordinary folks as the “pedigree “cereals, for which the hills of our own marine
southern suburb were once so famous, were superior to ordinary produce. The men
and women were all beautiful, good, and clever; and never had been known such
handsome negroes and negresses.
But as man improved, the gods came worse off; and the priests complained that,
owing to there being no imperfect specimens left, the supply of victims for
their sacrifices was running short. There was danger, they declared, of some
terrible judgment befalling the nation, through the neglect of the public
ordinances of religion.
Upon hearing this the King, after holding consultation with the priests,
determined upon making a new ecclesiastical canon. By this it was ordered that
the selections for sacrifice should be made among the shortest of his subjects,
male and female. He trusted thereby both to satisfy the gods, and raise the
average stature of his people.
The people, however, after the first sacrifice or two, determined no longer to
submit to such a state of things. They were wearied of the exactions of the
priests, and disposed to think that a deity who could derive gratification from
human sacrifices, could not be of much account anyhow. They had also imbibed
certain revolutionary notions unfavourable to monarchy. So one day they rose in
a mass, abolished the dynasty, disendowed the church, and established a
republic.
So high was the standard of female excellence, that there was no question about
women having, under the new regime, an equal share of political power with men.
They had it as a matter of course, and with laudable assiduity did they apply
themselves to
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the practice of parlimentary and forensic
eloquence. So earnest were they in the discharge of their public duties, that
the men gradually withdrew from public life altogether, as a thing best adapted
to women, and occupied themselves with ordinary affairs in the field, the
factory, the market, and the home; until every public office was held by women,
even the police and the army consisting exclusively of that sex.
Things went along smoothly and well until certain states-women of
On the approach of the Imperial army, the women of
But the women scornfully rejected their proffered aid, bade them stay at home
and look after their children and business, and then marched boldly forth to
meet the enemy.
No sooner had they departed than the men met in council. They knew how it would
he, and that no time must be lost. It was necessary, however, that their women
should receive a lesson. A battle, and therefore a reverse, could not take place
for a day or two. So, having armed and formed themselves into divisions, they
started after it vas dark to occupy the hills
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which overlooked the plain where the battle
was expected to take place, keeping their movements absolutely secret from the
army of women.
On the enemy coming in sight, the women with much show of determination, and
really making a most gallant appearance, advanced to meet him. The combat was
short and sanguinary, that is, to one side, the side of the unhappy
The unhappy fugitives were not suffered long to indulge these bitter
reflections. The sounds of battle were renewed. The tramp of a host came near.
Whither now shall they flee? Home! How can they face their homes, thus
humiliated after all their vauntings?
“What is this? No enemy! but our own – dear – men!! Oh, save us! save and
forgive!”
“All right, all right, lassies” – (they had a few Scotch words in their
vernacular. Many of them were literally “Bonny lassies,” for they belonged to
the
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battle, and directly you ran away and the
enemy gave chase, we pounced upon him and cut him to pieces. So now you can come
home, and resume your functions legislative and protective, without fear of
further molestation.”
The women were glad enough to go home, but from that day forward they steadily
declined to undertake functions which, through lack of physical strength, they
could only fulfil by sufferance. It was the remembrance of this incident that
mainly operated to retard the introduction of the European system into
Thus, in addition to Criss’s other labours on behalf of his African protégés, he
undertook to make them comprehend the natural law which seems to assign to men a
monopoly of the sphere of politics and legislation, and to restrict women to the
social and industrial sphere; inasmuch as the former is based on force, and the
latter on convenience, – a difference of function for which nature, and not man,
is responsible.
CHAPTER XI
SINCE his marriage, Criss had held no
intercourse with his spiritual friends. The tenor of his life was inconsistent
with reverie. His mind was too much engrossed by his labours or his troubles. On
his journeys, which were made with the utmost
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rapidity, he had things concrete to occupy
his thoughts; and ascents for mere abstract contemplation were apt to excite
Nannie’s jealousy. She was jealous even of the angels, and without waiting for
cause given, was ever ready to utter the imperious prohibition, “Thou shalt have
no other goddess but me.”
Hovering one day in the Ariel over his garden, Criss could see as he gazed
downwards, the smooth green sward and embowering trees, and the fair dwelling,
and Nannie, the embodiment of all his dreams of loveliness, and Zöe, the fruit
of his love for her; the whole forming together a scene of exquisite delight.
But the joy with which he contemplated it was instantly dashed by the thought of
the serpent which had thrown its coils around it, and converted what should be
his home of happiness into his place of torture.
Then recurred to him the vision of his friend the tall angel, and the sweet
bride-angel, Nannie’s prototype; and he wondered whether their experiences had
any counterpart in his own; and, if not, in what consisted the secret of their
happiness. And as he thus pondered, by a scarcely conscious impulse he drove his
car with rapid motion far up into his old ground, the Empyrean. “Tell me, tell
me,” his heart cried as he ascended, “oh ye blessed ones of the skies, what is
the secret of your bliss?”
It was not long before his yearning evoked a reply. The old ecstatic condition
in which thought became transfused into realities, came back upon him with
undiminished intensity, – and, presently, to his spiritual vision became
revealed the well-remembered noble form and serene countenance, and with it the
sweet and sunny face of the fair bride, looking, oh, so like Nannie, but Nannie
in her softest moods, that Criss could not forbear exclaiming, –
“Soul of my Nannie! canst thou not shed upon her while on earth some of the
sweet repose and confidence which thou enjoyest in heaven? Ye look on me with
the same joyous aspect as of old. Surely ye cannot be aware of the sadness which
darkens my life?”
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“We know all,” replied the tall angel, “and knowing all, we are glad, even
though thou sorrowest. Thy struggles and thy patience are not without their
reward, even though they continue to the end. Know that the task before thee is
harder than any that is given to us. This is thy badge of honour. It is for thee
to prove thyself worthy of it. Listen to the revelation of the mystery. Thou and
she are products of the same earth, but of different stages in that earth’s
development, thou of the later and highest, she of the earlier and lowest. The
inherent force of attraction which pervades all matter, organic and inorganic,
and constitutes love, has with you proceeded to the advanced stage, at which love means sympathy and self-devotion. She to
whom you are wedded is still in that primitive stage in which attraction is
mechanical rather than moral, is of body rather than of soul – the blind
attraction of otherwise inert masses, like the orbs of heaven and the
constituents of the earth – and is but the basis of love, rather than the love
which later comes. Only continue to have patience, and your influence will yet
permeate the system which has hitherto rejected it. The love that is not
self-love ultimately conquers all things. It is the sole universal solvent. It
maybe in time, or it may be in eternity.”
“The hope may enable me to endure to the end,” replied Criss; “but it has no
potency to charm her whom I love and would save. Can ye not give me aught that I
may bear back to her? Sweet face! loving heart!” he exclaimed, addressing
himself to the bride-angel, who, he now observed, carried in her arms that which
showed him that she too had become a mother, even a mother of angels; “hast thou
no wonder-working word of admonition which I may carry back with me?”
The young matron-angel kissed her child, and then bent her head over against
that of her spouse, and after a brief conference with him, said, –
“It is permitted me to impart to thee the secret of all happiness, whether in
heaven or elsewhere: the secret that would convert even the dread regions of the
lost to a scene of bliss, had those regions not long ago been for ever utterly
abolished.
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Know, then, that the resolve, persistently
maintained, to make the best of that which we have and are, would make of hell
itself a heaven; and how much more of earth! While, ever to make the worst of
things would turn heaven itself into a hell. The mind is its own bliss or woe.”
“You mean that I have failed to make the best of her?”
“Nay,” responded the other. “The application was meant for her, not for thee.”
Criss shook his head as he thought of the uselessness of presenting such a rule
to Nannie. In answer to his look appealing for yet further guidance, the tall
Angel took him aside, and said, –
“This for thine own ear, for few are equal to the knowledge. Mankind and
ourselves are identical in essence. It is the stage and conditions which differ.
We have no superincumbent mass of plasm through which to struggle to our soul’s
development; and to us virtue brings but little reward, its practice being so
easy. With men it is not so. There are some in whom the divine spark is so dim
and chill, that their smallest deed or thought of goodness weighs for much in
the everlasting balance. For these things go by proportion. It is not to lack or
to badness of heart that the conduct is due through which you suffer, but to
narrowness of vision, – a narrowness necessarily inherent in the sex whose
special function is maternity. If her mind be too tightly girt with the
affections which centre in self and in offspring, to be capable of enlargement
in the present, remember that Nature has need of such characteristics to ensure
continuance, and that hereafter it may not be so. Yet one word more. With us,
like weds only with like, and constituted as we are, we cannot be mistaken in
our mutual estimates, any more than the magnet and the steel. In your world it
is different. There the envelope is ofttimes too dense, and the character too
tardy of development, for the effect of love upon the disposition to be
foreseen. In such case, to court the irrevocable in marriage is to rush
presumptuously upon fate. But, as I have already said, the defect with her to
whom you have bound yourself is intellectual, not moral. Let this, and the
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certainty that you are loved utterly, with
such love as she is capable of, comfort and sustain you. Farewell.”
On his return from this flight, Criss’s countenance shewed unwonted serenity,
and be said something about the calm airs aloft, and the force of old
associations. Nannie’s suspiciousness at once took fire, for she had not failed
to observe his altered look. Remembering his old habit of going up in search of
spiritual intercourse, she exclaimed, –
“You have been among those angels again? Have you? I will know! I won’t have you
leaving me for creatures who will make you think me ugly and bad by comparison.”
“Why, Nannie, even if I have been among angels up there, surely you don’t want
to make me feel that I am not with all angel when down here? You can be one when
you like. You can’t help having the look of one. Why not act like one, also?”
“Time enough when I get up there, and have only angels to deal with. I treat
people as I find them.”
“I am rejoiced to find you contemplating such amendment.”
“As what?”
“As will suffer your admission to a region where jealousy and altercation are
unknown.”
“Then it must be a very stupid place, and I don’t want to go to it. And I say
again, that if you will persist in cultivating what you call your ideal, you
can’t expect ever to be satisfied with your real, which is me.”
Thus, the birth of their second child was heralded by a renewal of the old
wretched scenes, and it required all the native strength and hopefulness of
Criss’s character to keep him from subsiding into a condition of settled
despondency.
“Here is a surprise, Nannie,” he said to her one morning after opening a large
letter bearing the official seal of the First Minister. “You won’t object to
being called ‘My Lady’ in future?”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“It is through no seeking of mine, you may be sure,” he
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answered. “The Government has appointed me to
a seat in the Upper House, accompanying the notice with the most flattering
letter.” And he handed it to her to read for herself.
It contained a brief but warm encomium on his character and life, public and
private, and an expression of hope that the would, by accepting the proffered
dignity, let his own country have a yet larger share of the wide enthusiasm for
humanity which had inspired his magnificent endeavours for the regeneration of
the continent of Africa.
The same post had brought also a letter from Avenil, congratulating Criss on the
event to which he, Avenil, had been. privy, and saying that although most of the
functions of governing were now-a-days practically vested in Bureaux, yet these wanted careful
supervision, and that the very consciousness on the part of officials that
intelligent zeal was appreciated by the Legislative Chambers, served to secure
to the country the benefits of good administration. Besides, the progress of
civilization, so far from abolishing the necessity for government, as had once
been supposed would be the case, was ever producing new complications and needs.
“Are there women in it?” was Nannie’s first query.
“It is a House of Lords, not of Lords and Ladies, I assure you,” returned Criss.
“Well, I don’t care, it is all a plot against me, to take you away.” And she
lashed herself into a fury.
Criss thought he would try a new tack.
“Well, Nannie, I won’t say positively that it is not so. It is very likely that
the First Minister has heard of me as a poor fellow trying hard to do his duty
in the world, but so plagued by the childish fancies of a foolish jealous little
wife, as to be utterly miserable and worn out; and that it has occurred to him
that he may be giving me some relief by taking me a little from home, to breathe
the serene air of the Legislature. He is a very good-natured man, this First
Minister of ours, I assure you. I really should not be surprised if that was the
explanation of it, for you know that the letter is mere flattery,
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and that I have never justified such language
by trying to be a bit of use in the world.”
“I hate all talk about use, and duty, and such stuff. A man who has a wife, has
no business to think of duty elsewhere. What’s duty to love!”
“Well, Nannie, I am truly sorry that you should be so disappointed in your
husband. It is a great pity we did not clearly understand at first what your
requirements would be.”
“You will say next that you are disappointed in your wife, I suppose.”
“I should say but the truth. I should have liked a wife who, on finding her
husband so appreciated as to be invested with the highest honours his country
has to bestow, would be happy with all the joy of which her loving heart was
capable, and by the sweetness of her congratulations, stimulate him to yet
greater endeavours to adorn his life, and hers, with beautiful deeds.”
“Oh yes, you are always hinting that you wish you had married some other woman.
But you have married me, and I am not one of that sort.”
“I was referring to no woman in particular, but only to what any woman would do
who had the slightest particle of a heart, and knew what love meant.”
“You used to think me perfect.”
“So I do still, as regards the physical and outward part of your nature.”
“Well, isn’t that enough?”
“On the contrary, it only makes your deficiency in all other respects the more
palpable and hard to bear, just as the sight of a lovely fiend or maniac would
be more distressing than that of one whose outward appearance corresponds with
its mental condition. Oh, Nannie! Nannie!” he cried, with a burst of
uncontrolled anguish, such as he had never before permitted himself to indulge,
“Angel still in form, however fallen in spirit, is it indeed beyond the power of
love, human or divine, to redeem you from the curse that enthrals you?”
“Fallen!” she exclaimed, “I was never any better than I am.”
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“True,” he replied; “I fashioned my speech too much according to the ancient
traditions. I ought to have said, ‘Nannie, with a capacity for being the angel
you look, will no treatment develop the latent soul within you?’ Yet in one
sense my first phrase was right. You have fallen from the high pedestal of the
ideal on which my imagination once placed you.”
“Ah, but that was your mistake, for placing me there.”
“It was indeed, and bitterly am I punished for that one error of judgment.”
“What answer are you going to return about that appointment?”
“Are you desirous of advising me?” he asked.
“I will be good,” she answered, “if you will do one thing to please me. Decline
the Minister’s offer.”
Criss went into his study, and presently returned holding out a paper to her.
“I propose to send something of this kind,” he said. “What do you think of it?
Isn’t that a very good pet name for you in future?”
She read the rough draft, and said, –
“So I am the ‘Domestic Affliction,’ and you accept the office with the intention
of fulfilling its duties so far as your ‘Domestic Affliction’ will permit?”
“Yes, dear – I mean, Domestic Affliction, such is my design.”
“I won’t be laughed at. I never could bear being laughed at.”
“I have tried crying over you, in vain. I must laugh now for a change. It is a”
change I sorely need, heaven knows;” and he sighed heavily. “Nannie,” he said
suddenly, as a new thought struck him, “for the future I waste no more words of
reproof or remonstrance upon you. Whenever you indulge I n one of the tempers
with which you love so to distress me, I shall not utter a word, but only laugh,
until you come out of your evil humour.”
He had some time since made it a rule never to make mention
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to her of any person or object of any kind
beside herself. So habitual had it become with her to vent ill-natured remarks
concerning them, whether he himself showed interest in them or not. “Why do you
talk to me about them. I don’t care to hear about other folks. You seem to care
about everybody and everything more than about me.” The moment, however, that
she observed his reticence, she charged him with being deceitful, and having
concealments from her. To this his reply had been, –
“Nannie, it ought to be enough for you to abuse me. My friends at least should
be sacred; and I shall do what I can to keep them so, by never referring to one
of them in your presence. You have already by your virulence cut off almost
every possible topic of conversation between us. So that silence is really
becoming my sole resource.”
This time she looked at him half-incredulous and half-frightened, and said, –
“It doesn’t distress you more than it does myself.”
“Prove it by your conduct to be so, then,” he replied, “or I shall think that
you take a pleasure in distressing yourself, as much as in distressing me.”
There was a somewhat longer interval than usual before she again broke out.
Criss ascribed this, partly to the perplexity induced by the novel treatment
with which he had threatened her, and partly to the alarm she could not conceal,
at his frequent absences from home on the plea of attending the sittings in the
House of Lords. Nannie had taken fright lest he should thereby become in a
measure weaned from her. What would all her explosions effect when met by the
triple shield of absence, silence, and laughter?
One day, to his intense surprise, he came upon her kneeling beside her bed. No
one could pray for aught that was evil. To wish for a thing that was good,
sufficiently to pray for it, was, provided it was a thing coming within range of
the spiritual laws, surely to be far on the way towards its achievement. The
soul must at length be budding!
Filled with joy and hope, Criss endeavoured to retreat without
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hearing her words, for she was praying aloud.
But she uttered her petition with too much vehemence for him to accomplish this
purpose. It was a petition that he and their child, or children, might die
before her.
Horror-struck, he rushed towards her, exclaiming, –
“Nannie, Nannie, what is the meaning of such a prayer?”
She hesitated and looked confused; but at length confessed that she had prayed
thus through jealousy lest any other woman should have to do with them in the
event of their outliving herself.
CHAPTER XII
UNABLE to make any way by means of angry
reproaches, owing to Criss’s persistence in a policy of silence, the unhappy
Nannie at length conceived the idea of exhibiting her master passion in deeds.
Criss came home one day to find her alone in the house with her child. After a
scene in which she had completely lost herself, she had dismissed the entire
household at a moment’s notice, on the plea that they were in league with their
master against her. Her equanimity restored by the performance of this feat, she
went to the garden entrance, and quietly awaited Criss’s return. In due time he
arrived, doubtful of the humour in which he might find her, and was overjoyed at
the unwonted sweetness and meekness of her demeanour. Little Zöe was with her,
and together they repaired to the house. Criss was surprised at not seeing any
servant in waiting, and was about to ring for one, but Nannie stopped him, by
saying, –
“Is there anything you want, Criss dear? I will get it for you.”
“I only wanted a servant.”
“Yes, dear, it is no use your ringing. There is no one there.”
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“How, no one there?”
“They provoked me, and I sent them away.”
“What, all of them?”
“Yes, every one. There is not a soul in the house besides ourselves.”
“You have sent all my servants away! And for what reason?”
“They were my servants, too; and I am mistress here!”
“Let me hear the cause. I must know how far you were justified.”
“Justified! I hope I may dismiss my servants when I choose, without being
‘justified.’ ”
“No; no one is superior to justice. I must know all the particulars.”
“And if I won’t give them?”
“I shall know that you are in the wrong, and send for them back again.”
“You will outrage your wife by doing that?”
“Pardon me; I shall be repairing an outrage done by my wife upon justice.”
“The idea of putting justice in the scale against your wife! You make me jealous
of Justice. You make me hate it and all the other stupid virtues. I shall be
jealous of the servants, too, if you take their part against mo. Justice,
indeed! No, no. Love, that is love, is not for abstractions; it is only for
a person, and does not think of goodness, or anything but that person.”
Criss was firm; and finding that Nannie’s conduct had been absolutely causeless,
reinstated the whole of his household, apologizing to them for the act of his
wife. The affection and gratitude they exhibited towards him did not by any
means serve to appease her; but she feared to repeat “The act, for Criss
declared that he would tale her to live at the Triangle, where the servants were
beyond the control of individual caprice; and she hated the Triangle because he
had so many friends in it.
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“Nannie,” he said to her one day, when this storm had passed away, “I want you
to specify to me the causes of your discontent, in order that we may both
comprehend clearly what it is that makes us so miserable. Of course, being but
mortals, we cannot govern all things; and you are not so unreasonable as to
visit upon me that which is inevitable, and beyond man’s power to prevent. Now,
I beg you will think over and enumerate to me the various items, great and
small, in respect of which you deem your lot inferior to that of the most
fortunate women you have known. If you don’t like to speak them, write them, and
I will see what I can do to amend them. Here’s a sheet of paper. Is it big
enough to contain the list? I will number the items,” and he numbered the lines
with a big 1, 2, 3.
She stopped him when he had got thus far.
“You write it,” she said.
“Well, now for number 1?”
“My husband makes me jealous.”
“Very good; that is down. Now for number 2?”
“You don’t deny it.”
“That part comes afterwards. What am I to write against number 2?”
“The same. ‘My husband makes me jealous.’ And number 3 also. There, now you know all.”
“Not quite. We have now got to fill up the explanatory clauses. How does he make
you jealous?”
“Oh, if you don’t know by this time, I am not going to take the trouble to
repeat it.”
“Nannie, I must have some very serious talk with you, to which I insist upon
your listening. It is the way of all rational beings to form a certain plan or
ideal of the life they wish to follow, and to construct such ideal according to
their own constitution of mind and body, and the circumstances by which they are
surrounded. Having constructed such ideal, and entered upon the practice of it,
they follow it out to the best of their ability, amending or rejecting, as
experience may dictate, whatever interferes with or jars upon it. Now, tell me,
have you
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formed any ideal of life, in the pursuit of
which your happiness consists, and from which you endeavour to exclude all
foreign and intrusive elements. If you have, I should be most grateful to you
for communicating it to me. Nothing would give me greater delight than to help
you to maintain the ideal on which your happiness depends, and, if necessary,
help you to revise it. Tell me your scheme, and then, if you please, I will tell
you mine.
Nannie said that she knew nothing whatever about ideals, and had no scheme, but
acted only from impulse.
“I act from impulse, too,” replied Criss, “but my impulse prompts me to form and
act up to a certain ideal. Having constructed it according to the very best I
can imagine, by aid of all the lights I can obtain, that ideal becomes to me as
God. This God, I once fondly hoped faithfully to follow throughout the whole of
my life, my path at the same time being gladdened by the tender love I should
receive from, and bestow on the sweet partner of my home. This God I am resolved
to follow to the end, whether I be blest with such joy or not. Should my
expected joy be turned into misery, my rose become all thorn, the only question
would be, not should I abandon my ideal, but should I give up that which causes
my misery? Nannie, in obstructing my ideal of life, you are seeking to withdraw
me from God. If I have to give up either, you know me too well to doubt which it
will be. Even if I can stand the constant wear and tear of heart, brain, and
spirit, which your conduct causes me, my desire for your welfare would compel me
to separate you altogether from one in whose love you cannot be happy.”
“You would give me up! Then I know there is some other woman ––”
Utterly sick at heart, he turned away to leave the room, exclaiming, –
“Better had it been for you, cursed with such a nature, had I left you to take
the fatal leap from the burning wreck on which I found you. Nay, better even to
have left you to be outraged to death by the ruffians on Atlantika, while yet
young
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and innocent, than preserve you to develop
into that which you have become. Never more let man save the life of another,
unless he is sure that he is not saving it for a worse fate! I – I have saved a
serpent to poison my own life!”
“Criss! Criss, dear!” called Nannie after him; “don’t go, I want to speak to
you.”
He returned, looking haggard and ill.
“Be brief and careful,” he said; “my patience is nearly exhausted.”
“I only wanted to tell you that you go the wrong way to work with me. You don’t
understand women – no men do – or you wouldn’t make such a fuss about us, or let
us put you out so. Because you mean things when you say them, you think we do so
too. Never was a greater mistake. If you were to take no notice of my – my –
naughtiness, I shouldn’t care to be naughty. But it attracts your attention to
me, and – I like to attract your attention.”
He looked somewhat sternly at her, and then said, –
“Nannie, I shall take you at your word. Only, mind this, – if the prescription
fails, I try another.”
At the next outbreak, Nannie, who had forgotten the new condition, was astounded
to find Criss, instead of lamenting and remonstrating with her, taking it quite
coolly, and saying, –
“All right, Nannie darling; fire away; I won’t mind. I dare say the attack will
soon pass off if you give it free vent. But please just stop a moment, and
compose those nice lips of yours into one of your charming pouts, while I kiss
them. It will be a new sensation to kiss a lovely termagant in the very midst of
her fury. No? Well, if I musn’t reward you with a kiss for the capital receipt
you have given me, I will just go out for a bit, and come back when I think the
storm is quite over.” And he turned to quit the room.
To be taken at her word was the last thing Nannie intended. She was furious at
the indifference he had, in obedience to her, so well assumed. Snatching up
something heavy that lay at
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hand – neither she nor Criss ever knew
exactly what it was – she rushed towards the door as he was going, and while his
back was turned, struck him with all her might on the head, exclaiming, –
“There! that will teach you to outrage a woman’s feelings.”
So heavy was the blow that Criss was for some moments stunned. Staggering
against the wall, he managed to support himself there until power and
consciousness returned. She meanwhile, stood watching him, apparently without
having made up her mind as to the next step, for the situation was a new one,
and she had no experience to guide her.
On recovering from the first shock, Criss took his wife by the wrist, and led
her to a sofa. He did this gently, hut firmly, and she made no resistance.
Seating himself there beside her, he said, –
“Nannie, a prudent doctor always informs his patient of the effect likely to be
produced by any new medicine, so that the patient may not be taken unawares. You
omitted to tell me what would be the effect of my following your prescription of
indifference to your bad conduct, and thus have, as it were, laid a trap for me.
But now that I know so much, I shall be able to take the necessary precautions.
There is one point in which I shall imitate the doctor. A. long standing
complaint is not to be cured by a single dose. I shall continue the treatment
you have prescribed, in spite of its having seemingly aggravated the symptoms.
So, if you like to let me have the kiss now, which you refused before, please
adjust those charming lips ––”
But Nannie was obdurate. So Criss added, –
“Pray don’t keep me waiting for it, for my head sadly needs doctoring, and your
skill in surgery does not include the reparative as well as the destructive
branches of the art.”
“Nonsense! call yourself a, man, and care about a little tap like that! I didn’t
think you were a coward before.”
“Ah, Nannie, eyen we men have our weak points. Now that you have found mine out,
I hope that you will be considerate of it. But you wouldn’t like to have such a
deformity as a
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two-headed husband, and I certainly shall
look as if I had two heads if something is not done soon to allay the swelling.
Just feel it.” And he guided her hand, unresisting, to the wound.
Nannie had always had a morbid horror of blood. When she withdrew her hand, it
was crimson with the blood with which his hair was saturated.
Uttering a scream, she turned away and buried her face in a cushion, and sobbed
bitterly.
“I suppose the prescription applies to all outbreaks, whether of reproaches or
tears,” said Criss, rising; so while you are indulging yourself, I will go and
have my head mended. I should like to have had that kiss first, though.”
“You will find me dead when you come back,” she sobbed, scarce lifting her face
from its hiding place.
“Blissful hope!” cried Criss, gaily. “Don’t disappoint it. Au revoir!”
“Poor child,” he said to himself after leaving her, “if this does not cure her,
the case must be hopeless. And what is to be the end of it!”
“Doctor!” he said suddenly, while the wound was being examined in the doctor’s
surgery, for on second thoughts he had gone thither instead of sending for the
doctor to come to him, – “Doctor, what is to be the end of it?”
“Brain fever and death.”
“No, no, I mean for my wife, if she refuses to abandon her wild fancies.”
“I was speaking of her. There is no fear for your brain. There is fear, however,
of serious inflammation of the injured tissues; and as you must have absolute
quietness, I intend to keep you in close custody here, and let my wife nurse
you.”
Criss looked wistfully at the doctor, as if suspecting he meant more than he
said.
“I see you divine my motive,” said the doctor. “It is a twofold one. A good
fright, and enforced separation from you, through her own act, will be the best
possible thing for your wife. If that lesson fails, you may give her up with a
good
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conscience. Happily the law of the land
permits separation without making sin an indispensable formality. And all moral
laws combine to dictate such a course to a man in defence of his life, his
character, and his proper career in the world. Your usefulness is being
sacrificed.”
“By the way, doctor, I did not tell you how my head came to be injured.”
“And therefore I knew it was by your wife. You would not otherwise have
concealed it.”
Criss reluctantly consented to go up stairs and he down, at least for a while;
the doctor promising to have Nannie watched, and let Criss know if his presence
was called for.
Surprised at his failure to return, Nannie sent a servant to enquire if the
doctor knew where he was.
An answer to the effect that he was there very ill, and must on no account be
disturbed, caused Nannie to follow with all speed.
She was ushered into a room, and kept waiting for some time before anyone came.
At length Doctress Markwell entered, and enquired what she pleased to want.
“Want! I hear my husband is here, ill, and I have come to attend on him.”
“You are very good, but he is being perfectly cared for, by the doctor and
myself.”
“But I am his wife, and insist on ––”
“Insist on completing your work, and killing him outright?”
“Out of my way, woman! I shall go to my husband.” And she rushed towards the
stairs.
“That is quite out of the question. He is far away in a place secure from
intrusion, and even from noise. You can neither reach him, nor make yourself
heard by him. He has friends who love and respect him, to care for him now,
thank God.”
“And do you think I do not love him?”
“It may be with such love as exists among wild beasts, but not with what human
beings call love.”
(p.
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Nannie raved awhile, but finding she made no progress, at length went home,
somewhat calmed by the suggestion that it would please him best to find that she
was attending to her child.
Daily the same scene was renewed, the doctor remaining firm, in the hope of
conquering Nannie’s wilfulness, and only telling Criss that his wife came daily
to enquire if she might come and nurse him. He spoke with no sanguine
anticipation of a favourable issue for her. “A woman who avows herself
indifferent to consequences,” he said, “and at all hazards persists in indulging
her wildest impulses, is beyond the reach of skill. It is a growth that is
needed, not an alterative. Judging by this characteristic, and what you tell me
of her parentage, I should say that she has Calvinism in the blood. No man acts fairly by his own
life and happiness, unless he takes into account the character of the stock with
which he allies himself, as well as the early training of the individual.”
The event proved the correctness of the doctor’s prognostications. Nannie soon
forgot the lesson she had received, and showed herself inaccessible to a sense
even of the most serious consequences. Her motto might have been that of the
ancient divinity, “I am, and what I am I shall be,” for she recognized no law
but that of her own unreasoning will; and self-consciousness, and effort at
amendment were altogether beyond her. But the end, for that came at last,
differed somewhat from that which had been foreshadowed. In the meantime Criss
threw all prescriptions and endeavours to improve her, to the winds, and was
kind, tender, and loving, as if she had been the best of wives, treating her as
a victim of disease, and not of mere wilfulness.
Intensely as Criss felt Nannie’s behaviour for himself, it was for her that his
feelings were most deeply exercised. Why could she not be as perfect in all
respects as she was in respect of the functions specially belonging to her sex?
Surely the old Oriental notion that man only is endowed with soul, had no
foundation in fact. Yet here was one who was a woman of women, and yet to all
appearance utterly incapable of moral
(p.
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development. With her, love was all, and of
that she could not have enough. So completely was her whole nature devoted to
it, that she needed no distractions to enable her to rest and return to its
exercise with fresh appetite. It seemed as if sex had so early attained its
maturity in her as to arrest and take the place of all other development, – a
phenomenon due, perchance, thought Criss, to the tropical climate in which she
had been reared.
Pondering thus, long and anxiously, and seeking as was his wont, to find a place
for her in his generalizations of the world, he became impressed with the idea
that hers might be one of those natures into which, only through the
ministration of pain, could an avenue be opened for the entry of the lacking
soul. “Pain, Sorrow, Repentance, these constitute, at least for some, the triune
creator of the human soul. The fall was indeed a rise, inasmuch as, through the
sorrow that followed, man found, not lost, his soul. He was made perfect through
suffering. Nannie! Nannie! Am I to be the period to your initial stage of moral
unconsciousness, and become to you as a schoolmaster to develop the inner life
within you? The gospel of grace failing, must I fall back on the law?”
It was not Criss alone who indulged in the process of ratiocination. Nannie
thought, too, sometimes, or at least carried on a process analogous to thinking,
in whatever it was that constituted the corresponding part of her system.
Criss’s musings, just recorded, were interrupted by her with the remark, –
“I wish, Criss dear, you would change our doctor, for one that has not got a
doctress for a wife.”
“I am quite in the dark,” he said. “Tell me all you are thinking, Nannie.”
“I know,” she continued, “That you hare known him all your life, and look upon
him as a great friend, and all that. But now that you are married, things are
different. You fancy, I dare say, that a woman doctor is best for a woman, as
knowing most about her nature and ways?”
“Certainly. Do you think it is not so?”
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“Oh, of course it is so, and that is my objection to them. They know too much,
and are apt to be hard upon us in consequence. Every woman is cruel to other
women, for women all look upon each other as rivals, and they hurt each other on
purpose. I should do just the same if I were a doctress.”
“But, without quite agreeing with what you say of your sex,” returned Criss,
amused in spite of himself at his wife’s ascription of her own irrational
jealousy to the whole of her sex, “I think an arrangement can be made to suit
all parties without my acting so unfriendly and rude a part by a life-long
friend. Suppose that for the future Dr. Markwell attends you, and Doctress
Markwell attends me?”
“Criss! you wouldn’t, you daren’t, have a woman to attend you!” almost shrieked
Nannie. “I should kill her, I know I should, and I should be quite justified in
it. Besides, that wouldn’t answer the purpose at all. For even if she did not
see me, he would still be able to consult her about me, and she would be sure to
advise what she knew would hurt me. Oh, you don’t know what cats we women are!”
“Well, Nannie, you seem determined that I shall not remain in ignorance.
Perhaps, after all, the best way will be for us to keep well so that neither of
us require a doctor. I promise you that I will do all I can on my part to avoid
calling in Mrs. Markwell.”
“You never do what I wish, but always object and argue and make conditions, just
as if I was not your wife, and had no right to have my feelings considered. I am
sure it is a small enough thing that I want – this time.”
“A small thing! that I should show gross rudeness and ingratitude to people to
whom I owe so much ––”
“Owe! why you have paid them well ––”
Here Nannie paused, for she saw upon her husband’s face an expression of intense
disgust at this utterance. For his anger she cared little, – that was not
incompatible with love. But she did not want to incur his contempt. His reply
convinced her that she had gone too far.
“I will see what I can do to meet your wishes,” he said
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coldly, and rising to leave the room.
“Perchance it may be better for you to be placed in a position wherein you will
be free to choose your own line of action in all things, without reference to
me. For it is clear that we cannot agree upon a common point of view.”
If Criss seriously contemplated a separation from his wife, it was not for his
own sake. The very feminity of her nature bound him to her so completely, that
he would endure anything that was painful to himself merely. But he could not
imagine her as equally wrapped up in him while she persistently abstained from
making the slightest effort to mould herself to his wishes. He began to think
that she would be both happier and better without him, perhaps in some other and
more congenial association. The thought was agony to him. But for her good he
would dare anything.
A conversation which took place that same evening at Bertie’s served to mature
his thoughts on the subject. Avenil and Dr. Markwell were there together with
Bertie and Criss. As all were old and attached friends, all rejoiced in the news
which Avenil had brought from town. It was to the effect that his youngest
sister, Bessie, had, after little more than a year of separation from her
husband, begged to rejoin him, and her prayer had been accepted.
It had come about in this way. For the first month of her self-imposed
widowhood, Bessie had seemed to rejoice in her freedom. She owned herself,
however, surprised at the lack of warmth with which she was received in society.
She could not understand why she should be looked on coldly when she had only
exercised an undoubted right. Being strong and bravo of spirit she determined to
treat this as a matter of little moment. At the same time she could not help
admitting to herself that she was more lonely than she had expected to be; and
she was very glad when, ‘at the expiration of the first six months, her child
came to spend the second half of the year with its mother. It was a little girl,
and Bessie took to it with an
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ardour that astonished herself. Her period
flew as time had never before flown with Bessie. She was in despair when the
time came for the child to return to its father. seeing her tears and agitation,
the child remarked, –
“Papa cried too when I came away from him.”
This put an idea into Bessie’s head, but before acting on it, she determined to
see first how she was affected by the renewed separation from her child. A short
time was sufficient to show her both that she herself could not be happy without
it, and that she had inflicted on her husband, who evidently loved the child as
much as she did, a far greater degree of pain than she had been aware of. Her
motives for desiring a separation in the first instance now appeared to her to
be of the most trivial and selfish character; so much so, indeed, that she
doubted if ever she could be forgiven and received back.
Forgiven and received back! Should she stoop to this, and put it in the power of
people to say that she repented only because she had failed to get another
husband?
The struggle was bitter, but it was brief. She was an Avenil, and therefore had
a strong heart as well as a strong head. “What is it to me what people say, if I
think it right, and choose to do it?”
In this mood she wrote to her husband: –
“I have been selfish, but I knew not how selfish until now. Am I beyond your
fogiveness?”
His reply found her nearly distracted by the suspense. When she read it, all was
joy. It ran thus: –
“I love you still as ever. If you can be content with such love as mine, come.”
To this the little one added, in her large childish hand, “Come, dear mamma,”
with a rude circle drawn beneath, in which was written the words Two Kisses, to signify that she and her
father had each imprinted a kiss on that spot.
(p.
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“There is no doubt what would have been the result under the ancient law,”
remarked the doctor, when Avenil had finished his narrative. “The unhappy
couple, unable to separate legally, would have dwelt together in discontent and
misery until death did them part, or degradation worse than death.”
“The child was the real reconciler,” observed Bertie.
“And a very proper function too, for a child,” said the doctor, “and one fully
recognized by the law when it left Nature free to operate unembarrassed by
artificial enactments.”
“Would it not have done as well,” suggested Criss, “for them to have tried a
temporary separation before completely dissolving their union?”
“Most assuredly not,” said Avenil. “It is true that but for the child, either or
both would probably have contracted a fresh marriage within a year. But only the
conviction of the reality of the separation would have worked such a change in
the mother. She had long thought that all was over. Her very despair served to
redeem her. A separation which she could regard as terminable at any time would
have produced no such salutary effect.”
“Redeemed by despair,” repeated Criss to himself, as he walked, pondering,
homewards. “And I had been thinking of sorrow and suffering, but without the
other dread element, as a means of saving my own poor child, and evoking an
inner life. Would a like regime answer with her? Certainly not, unless she
voluntarily undertook it herself. And this she has no motive or desire to do.
For she is not really discontented. Her idea of love is that of a rapid
alternation of conflicts and reconciliations. It includes a spice of hate as an
essential ingredient. The Avenils have heads as well as hearts. They can commit
mistakes and repent, and be better for them. My poor Nannie has no head to go
wrong with, therefore none to repent and amend with. Were she to find herself
separated from me for any fault of hers, so far from seeing and owning her fault
and improving, she would, like a wild animal, tear herself in pieces with rage.
Strange arrest of development! in all that relates to the fundamental fact of
her being, she is, and knows
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herself to be, perfect. But of any
superstructure that ought to be raised on that foundation, she comprehends and
tolerates nothing. What a power she would have been in an
So Criss reasoned himself out of the idea which had suggested itself to him, the
idea of separating from Nannie. He did not know that after his departure from
the cottage, his friends discussed his case, and came to a not very different
conclusion. Avenil had asked the doctor whether he thought Bessie’s history
would suggest to Criss a practical remedy for his troubles. The answer was, –
“He will think of it, and reject it as not suited to the patient’s
constitution.”
“I meant for his own comfort,” added Avenil.
“He will consider nothing but her good. His Christianity consists in being
faithful to his convictions even up to crucifying-point. He knows that such a
measure as a separation would induce in her acute cerebral inflammation, to
which madness would probably supervene. No, what she requires is a religion. I
doubt whether anything else will reach her complaint.”
“Well, doctor,” said Avenil, “If you have in your pharmacopœia a religion
capable of curing a woman of jealousy, the sooner you prescribe it the better.
But I confess that I never heard of one.”
“I can guess,” remarked Bertie, “what our dear boy himself would say on that
point. He would say, ‘If love fails, can religion succeed?’ “
Relief came in a way unanticipated and undesired. It was the time of midwinter.
Their second child was a few months old. Nannie had retired to rest alone, for
Criss had gone to see
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Bertie, who was again attacked with sudden
and severe illness. Despite her promise to go to bed as usual, she bad sat up
till past midnight waiting for Criss’s return, as he had promised not to delay
after the dangerous symptoms had abated. At length she yielded to the entreaties
of the nurse, and went to bed.
Criss remained with Bertie until the remedies had worked the ‘desired change. It
wanted yet several hours of daylight when the doctor pronounced the danger over
for the present. Criss then started off in a bitter storm of wind and sleet to
walk home.
He had not gone far when he thought he heard a faint cry, as if calling some
one. Seeing nothing, he continued his course, but at a slackened pace. Presently
there was a sound of steps, accompanied by a cry of agonized despair. This
brought him to a stand, and while standing something rushed upon him, carrying a
burden, and just as it reached him, fell to the ground, uttering a name which he
did not catch.
“My poor creature, who and what is it wandering at such a time and in such
weather?” he exclaimed, in a pitying tone, and stooping to raise the prostrate
figure. “A woman! half clad! and a child too! Come, let me raise you up, and put
this warm cloak round you, and if you have no other and nearer refuge, let me
support you to my house, where you shall be cared for. It is enough to kill the
little one, to say nothing of its mother, as I suppose you to be.”
“I was forced to bring the child, or it would have cried and awakened the nurse;
and they would have prevented me from coming ––”
“What, Nannie,” cried Criss, thunderstruck on recognizing his own wife and
little son.
“Yes,” she continued, “it is Nannie. I was so wretched and miserable without
you, and so frightened to think that – that – but see! see! the child is warm,
oh, so nice and warm. I kept him so closely wrapped up in my shawl. He is quite
warm, though I have been waiting for you to come so long, so long. I thought my
feet would have been frozen. Yes, take and carry
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him for me. Now I have found you I can
forgive you all – all. And let me hold your arm and we will soon be home. Oh,
not so fast, I cannot keep up.”
Whatever Criss might feel, it was no time to expend words either in anger or
pity. With much difficulty he got them home, and having directed the nurse, whom
he found just awakened and half distraught with fright on discovering their
absence, to put both mother and child instantly into a warm bath, he went to his
study to summon Dr. Markwell.
A long time of sadness followed. First, the little one went; and then Nannie’s
fever from cold and – I was about to say – remorse, but to this, indomitable to
the last, she would never own. The fever from cold and excitement settled on her
lungs, and brought on a consumption which defied all skill.
During its progress, Nannie acknowledged to Criss that in her heart she had
always, even while behaving her worst, believed firmly in the depth and
genuineness of his affection. Yet, so ingrained in her nature was the sentiment
of jealousy which had led to such lamentable results, that even to the last she
busied herself in contriving for Criss plans of dissuasion from a second
marriage. In this view she said to him one day, –
“Criss, dear, I will tell you a reason why you ought never to marry again. Your
love is of the kind that would drive any woman mad. By-the-by, doctor,” she said
suddenly to him, ‘‘am I mad? Must I not have been mad to have had such
impressions as I had, if they were not true?”
“No, my dear lady. Everyone is liable to impressions, fancies, or ideas; for
such things constitute an element of thought. Madness consists in acting upon
mere impressions, especially when they are devoid of probability, and incapable
of verification.”
“Tell me,” she said to Criss another time, “what was your feeling when I was
behaving so ill, – when I struck you, for instance? Weren’t you in a great rage,
and longing to knock me down? I know I wished you had, – sometimes. I wanted to
feel that I had good cause to be naughty.”
(p.
362)
“My first feeling was for you, my poor darling. I thought of the agony of
unhappiness you were laying up for yourself.”
“Yes, yes; that’s quite true. It was so; only I was too proud to let you know
it. But what was the second?”
“The second was a reflection which gave me vast comfort. I felt that your
confidence in my love must indeed be unbounded, when you could subject it to
such severe tests.”
“I should like to live, Criss. But no; it is better I should die. You will
always love me if I go now. If I were to live, I should do something much worse
than I have done yet, – something that would make you hate me. Oh, I know I
should! The demon is too strong in me for me ever to be good. Unless – unless –
I could remain always as I am now. Do ask the doctor, Criss, if he can keep me
alive just as I am, without get-ting any better or any worse. I think the
consumption agrees with me. I am sure I feel better and happier, and more
good-like than I ever did before I had it. I wonder if I could behave worse were
I to get well. I hope, Criss, it was not I that caused our little boy’s death.
Oh, if I did that, I am a murderess already!”
“My dearest Nannie, put such wild and dreadful fancies out of your head,” he
exclaimed; for he was resolved to keep from her the agonizing truth that the
child had indeed been killed by the exposure of that terrible night. Had her own
life not been threatened, such knowledge might have been necessary as a lesson
against yielding to her uncontrolled impulses.
Avenil rejoiced in Criss’s bereavement almost as much as he had rejoiced in his
marriage. It is true, he regarded Nannie as the most perfect specimen of simple
womanhood he had known, for the potency in her of the instinct of monopoly, and
the absolute concentration of all the faculties of her being upon the main
function of her sex. It was by this light that he was wont to interpret the
ancient legend of Eve, which represents the woman as talking the initiative. In
Avenil’s view, derived from a profound study of natural history, Nannie would
have been less perfect as a woman lad she possessed a greater width of
intellectual comprehension.
(p.
363)
He thought, moreover, that he discerned a certain affinity of character between
the husband and wife, in that each possessed a highly emotional temperament.
Criss’s religiousness, he held, would have endangered his sanity, had it not
been counteracted by a sound education and training. It was through the lack of
such discipline, that Nannie’s emotions had driven her to the borderland of
madness. Now that men have ceased to coerce their wives by superior physical
force, or to allow priests to do it for them by means of spiritual terror; or
society by might of conventional law, the only safeguard that women have against
the tyranny of their own emotions is to be found in the training of their
imitative faculties, or whatever it is in them that corresponds to the intellect
in men. That the entire female population of the globe had escaped coming to
utter grief, he held to be due to the strong hands of the male part. The
necessity of being cruel only to be kind, thus, to Avenil, accounted fully and
satisfactorily for the ancient regime of “Injustice to women.” Avenil, it should
be mentioned, is not a married man. He has never, he says, found time.
Finding Criss continuing too long inconsolable, his faithful friend, the doctor,
ventured one day to remark, by way of remonstrance, –
“You are thinking of her as living in all her surpassing loveliness and
irresistible vivacity, and without the drawback of the excitability which marred
her perfections. Endeavour rather to think of the fate that awaited her and you,
if she had lived. You, perhaps, murdered; she, certainly in a madhouse. If ever
foolish woman was bent upon driving herself mad, she was. If no other, let the
reflection that you are both spared this, be your consolation.”
Nannie’s last words had been, –
“You wanted Nature, and you got it – pure, genuine, un-adulterated Nature. Did
you not, Criss dear? Own you did, and say that you liked it so, – better than if
it had been civilized and tame. I know how it is, Criss. You thought you were
wedding sunshine, and you wedded a volcano. Never mind,
(p.
364)
Criss; it will soon be an extinct one.
Perhaps it will some day come to b e, for you, like that one we could see from
our place in Soudan, its rugged sides covered and hidden with beautiful plants
and flowers. I hope, Criss, you will let your ugly memories of me be covered up
by fair ones. I can’t bear there should be anything ugly about me, even when I
am dead. Don’t cry for me too long; I should never have been any better were I
to live a thousand years. I am worse than the volcano. I am more like the
lightning, that can only blast and destroy, and never produce anything good or
beautiful; though you did tell me once that the lightning and volcano have the
same origin as the sunshine. Perhaps they have; I don’t under-stand anything. I
only know one thing, and that is, – I should never have been any better, never,
– unless you beat me. Oh, Criss, Criss! why wouldn’t you beat me?”
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