Alcott, Louisa May - SSC 20 (11 page)

 
          
“Are
you implacable?
and
will you rob me of all
self-control, all peace, all energy, all hope of gaining that for which I have
paid so costly a price?”

 
          
“I
will.”

 
          
“Take
back all you have given me, take my good name, my few friends,
my
hard-earned success; leave me stripped of every earthly
blessing, but free me from this unnatural subjection, which is more terrible to
me than death!”

 
          
“I
will not!”

 
          
“Then
your own harsh decree drives me from you, for I will break the bond that holds
me, I w ill go out of this house and never cross its threshold while I live —
never look into the face which has wrought me all this ill. There is no law,
human or divine, that can give you a right to usurp the mastery of another
will, and if it costs life and reason I will not submit to it.”

 
          
“Go
when and where you choose, put land and sea between us, break what ties you
may, there is one you cannot dissolve, and when I summon you, in spite of all
resistance, you must come.”

 
          
“I
swear I will not!”

 
          
I
spoke out of a blind and bitter passion, but I kept my oath. How her eyes
glittered as she lifted up that small pale hand of hers, pointed with an
ominous gesture to the ring, and answered:

 
          
“Try
it.”

 
          
As
she spoke like a sullen echo came the crash of the heavy picture that hung
before us. It bore Lady Macbeth’s name, but it was a painted image of mv wife.
I shuddered as I saw it fall, for to my superstitious fancy it seemed a fateful
incident; but Agatha laughed a low metallic laugh that made me cold to hear,
and whispered like a sibyl:

 
          
“Accept
the omen; that is a symbol of the Art you worship so idolatrously that a
woman’s heart was sacrificed for its sake. See where it lies in ruins at your
feet, never to bring you honor, happiness or peace; for I speak the living
truth when I tell you that your ambitious hopes will vanish the cloud now
rising like a veil between us, and the memory of this year will haunt you day
and night, till the remorse you painted shall be written upon heart, and face,
and life. Now go!”

 
          
Her
swift words and forceful gesture seemed to banish me for ever, and, like one
walking in his sleep, I left her there, a stern, still figure, with its
shattered image at its feet.

 
          
That
instant I departed, but not far — for as yet I could not clearly see which way
duty led me. I made no confidante, asked no sympathy or help, told no one of my
purpose, but resolving to take no decisive step rashly,
1
went away to a
country house of Agatha’s, just beyond the city, as I had once done before when
busied on a work that needed solitude and quiet, so that if gossip rose it
might be harmless to us both. Then I sat down and thought. Submit I would not,
desert her utterly I could not, but I dared defy her, and I did; for as if some
viewless spirit whispered the suggestion in my ear, I determined to oppose my
will to hers, to use her weapons if

 
          
I
could, and teach her to be merciful through suffering like my own. She had
confessed my power to draw her to me, in spite of coldness, poverty and all
lack of the attractive graces women love; that clue inspired me with hope. I
got books and pored over them till their meaning grew clear to me; I sought out
learned men and gathered help from their wisdom; I gave myself to the task w
ith indomitable zeal, for I was struggling for the liberty that alone made life
worth possessing. The world believed me painting mimic woes, but I was living
through a fearfully real one; friends fancied me busied with the mechanism of
material bodies, but I was prying into the mysteries of human souls; and many
envied my luxurious leisure in that leafy nest, while I was leading the life of
a doomed convict, for as I kept my sinful vow so Agatha kept hers.

 
          
She
never wrote, or sent, or came, but day and night she called me — dav and night
I resisted, saved only by the desperate means I used — means that made my own
servant think me mad. I bid him lock me in my chamber; I dashed out at all
hours to walk fast and far awav into the lonely forest; I drowned consciousness
in wine; I drugged mvself with opiates, and when the crisis had passed, woke
spent but victorious. All arts I tried, and slowly found that in this conflict
of opposing
wills
my own grew stronger with each
success, the other lost power with each defeat. I never wished to harm mv wife,
never called her, never sent a baneful thought or desire along that mental
telegraph which stretched and thrilled between us; I onlv longed to free
myself, and in this struggle weeks passed, vet neither won a signal \ ictory,
for neither proud heart knew the beauty of self-conquest and the power of
submission.

 
          
One
night I w
ent
up to the lonely tower that crowned the
house, to watch the equinoctial storm that made a Pandemonium of the elements
without. Rain streamed as if a second deluge was at hand; whirlwinds tore down
the valley; the river chafed and foamed with an angrv dash, and the city lights
shone dimly through the flying mist as I watched them from my loftv room. The
tumult suited me, for mv own mood was stormv, dark and bitter, and when the
cheerful fire invited me to bask before it I sat there wrapped in reveries as
gloomy as the night. Presently the well-know n premonition came with its sudden
thrill through blood and nerves, and with a revengeful strength never felt
before I gathered up my energies for the trial, as I waited some more urgent
summons. None came, but in its place a sense of power flashed over me, a swift
exultation dilated within me, time seemed to pause, the present rolled away,
and nothing but an isolated memory remained, for fixing my thoughts on Agatha,
I gave myself up to the dominant spirit that possessed me. I sat motionless, yet
I willed to see her. Vivid as the flames that framed it, a picture started from
the red embers, and clearly as if my bodily eye rested on it, I saw the well-
known room, I saw my wife lying in a deep chair, wan and wasted as if with
suffering of soul and body, I saw her grope with outstretched hands, and turn
her head with eyes whose long lashes never lifted from the cheek where they lav
so dark and still, and through the veil that seemed to wrap my senses I heard
my own voice, strange and broken, whispering:

 
          
“God
forgive me, she is blind!”

 
          
For
a moment, the vision wandered mistily before me, then grew steady, and I saw
her steal like a wraith across the lighted room, so dark to her; saw her bend
over a little white nest mv own hands placed there, and lift some precious
burden in her feeble arms; saw her grope painfully back again, and sitting by
that other fire — not solitary like my own — lay her pale cheek to that baby
cheek and seem to murmur some lullaby that mother-love had taught her. Over my
heart strong and sudden gushed
a warmth
never known
before, and again, strange and broken through the veil that wrapped my senses,
came my own voice whispering:

 
          
“God
be thanked, she is not utterly alone!”

 
          
As
if my breath dissolved it, the picture faded; but I willed again and another
rose — my studio, dim with dust, damp with long disuse, dark with evening gloom
— for one flickering lamp made the white shapes ghostly, and the pictured faces
smile or frown with fitful vividness. There was no semblance of my old self
there, but in the heart of the desolation and the darkness Agatha stood alone,
with outstretched arms and an imploring face, full of a love and longing so
intense that with a welcoming gesture and a cry that echoed through the room, I
answered that mute appeal:

 
 
          
“Come
to me!
come
to me!"

 
          
A
gust thundered at the w indow, and rain fell like stormy tears, but nothing
else replied; as the bright brands dropped the flames died out, and w ith it
that sad picture of my deserted home. I longed to stir but could not, for I had
called up a
pow
er I could not lay, the servant ruled
the master now, and like one fastened by a spell I still sat leaning forward
intent upon a single thought. Slow ly from the gray embers smouldering on the
hearth a third scene rose behind the smoke wreaths, changeful, dim and strange.
Again my former home, again mv wife, but this time standing on the threshold of
the door I had sworn never to cross again. I saw the wafture of the cloak
gathered about her, saw the rain beat on her shelterless head, and followed
that slight figure through the deserted streets, over the long bridge where the
lamps flickered in the wand, along the leafy road, up the wide steps and in at
the door whose closing echo startled me to consciousness that my pulses were
beating w ith a mad rapidity, that a cold dew stood upon my forehead, that
every sense was supernaturallv alert, and that all were fixed upon one point
with a breathless intensity that made that little span of time as fearful as
the moment when one hangs poised in air above a chasm in the grasp of
nightmare. Suddenly I sprang erect, for through the uproar of the elements
without, the awesome hush within, I heard steps ascending, and stood waiting in
a speechless agony to see what shape w ould enter there.

 
          
One
by one the steady footfalls echoed on my ear, one by one they seemed to bring
the climax of some blind conflict nearer, one by one they knelled a human life
away, for as the door swung open Agatha fell dow n before me, storm-beaten,
haggard, spent, but loving still, for with a faint attempt to told her hands
submissively, she w hispered:

 
          
“You
have conquered, I am here!” and w ith that act grew still for ever, as with a
great shock I woke to see w hat I had done.

 
          
* * *

^u
You
have
conquered, I am here!”

 
          
Ten
years have passed since then. I sit on that same hearth a feeble, white-haired
man, and beside me, the one companion I shall ever know, mv little son — dumb,
blind and imbecile. I lavish tender names upon him, but receive no sweet sound
in reply; I gather him close to my desolate heart, but meet no answering
caress; I look with yearning glance, but see only those haunting eyes, with no
gleam of recognition to warm them, no ray of intellect to inspire them, no
change to deepen their sightless beauty; and this fair body moulded with the
Divine sculptor’s gentlest grace is always here before me, an embodied grief
that w rings my heart with its pathetic innocence, its dumb reproach. This is
the visible punishment for mv sin, but there is an unseen retribution heavier
than human judgment could inflict, subtler than human malice could conceive,
for with a power made more omnipotent by death Agatha still calls me. God knows
I am w illing
now, that
I long w ith all the passion
of desire, the anguish of despair to go to her, and He knows that the one tie
that holds me is this aimless little life, this duty that I dare not neglect,
this long atonement that I make. Day and night I listen to the voice that
whispers to me through the silence of these years; day and night I answer w ith
a yearning cry from the depths of a contrite spirit; day and night 1 cherish
the one sustaining hope that Death, the great consoler, w ill soon free both
father and son from the inevitable doom a broken law’ has laid upon them; for
then I know that somewhere in the long hereafter my remorseful soul w ill find
her, and w ith its poor offering of penitence and love fall dow n before her,
humbly saying: