Elective Affinities (3 page)

‘Very well then,’ Charlotte replied, ‘I will begin with a general observation. Men think more of individual and present things, and rightly, because they are called upon to be active, while women, on the other hand, think more of what is continuous in life, and they are equally right, because their fate and the fate of their families is tied to this continuity and it is precisely this feeling for continuity that is demanded of
them. So let us take a look at our present and past life; you will then grant me that to call the Captain here does not coincide so closely with our intentions, our plans or our arrangements as you have maintained.

‘I like so very much to think back to when we first knew one another! When we were young we loved very dearly. We were parted: you from me, because your father, from an insatiable craving for possessions, married you to a somewhat older wealthy woman; I from you, because having no special prospects, I had to give my hand to a well-to-do man I did not love, though he had my respect. We became free again; you earlier, when your little mother left you in possession of a considerable fortune; I later, just at the time you came back from your travels. And so we found one another again. We rejoiced at what we remembered, loved what we remembered, and there was nothing to hinder our living together. You urged marriage; I did not consent at once for, since we are about the same age, I have grown older as a woman, you have not grown older as a man. In the end I would not refuse you what you seemed to consider your only happiness. You wanted to recover at my side from all the distresses you had experienced at court, in the army, on your travels; to come to yourself again, to enjoy life; but to do this with me alone. I sent my only daughter off to a boarding-school, where she is, to be sure, developing in many more directions than she would have if she had stayed in the country; and not her alone, I also sent there my dear niece Ottilie, who might perhaps have grown up into a domestic companion more suitably under my own guidance. All this took place with your agreement, simply so that we ourselves might live and enjoy undisturbed the happiness we had earlier longed for so intensely and later at last attained. Thus did we enter upon our sojourn in the country. I took charge of affairs indoors, you of affairs outdoors and of whatever affected us as a whole. I have ordered my life to meet your wishes in all things, to live only
for you; let us try, at least for a time, to see whether we cannot in this way suffice one another.’

‘Since, as you say, continuity is your real element,’ Eduard replied, ‘we ought not to pay attention to you when you call upon individual instances, nor give in to you without argument, though you may have been right before today. The foundation we have laid for our existence is a good one; but are we to build nothing more on it? Is nothing else to develop from it? What I have achieved in the garden, and you in the park – shall we have done that only for hermits?’

‘That is all very true,’ Charlotte replied; ‘only do not let us bring in any impediment. Remember that our pleasures too were intended to a certain extent to depend on our being alone together. You wanted first of all to show me your travel journals in correct sequence and in so doing to reduce to order all the papers that belong with them, and with my support and assistance to assemble out of these invaluable but muddled leaves and notebooks a whole which we and others might enjoy. I promised to help you copy them out, and we thought to travel in memory, and in comfortable seclusion, through the world we were unable to see together. Indeed, we have already made a start. Then you have taken up your flute again in the evenings and I join you at the piano; and we do not lack visitors or people to visit. I at least have made for myself out of all this the first truly happy summer of my life, as happy as any I thought to enjoy.’

‘That is very loving and sensible,’ Eduard replied, rubbing his forehead, ‘and I would agree with it were it not for the thought that the Captain’s presence will disturb nothing, but rather expedite and enliven everything. He was with me on some of my travels, and he too noticed many things and in his own way: only if we employed his recollections with mine would it become a proper whole.’

‘In that case,’ Charlotte said, somewhat impatiently, ‘let
me confess in all sincerity that this proposal goes against my feelings. I have a premonition that no good will come of it.’

‘Granted this fashion of argument,’ Eduard replied, ‘you women would be invincible: first sensible, so that one cannot contradict; affectionate, so that one is glad to give in; sensitive, so that one does not want to hurt you; full of premonitions, so that one is frightened.’

‘I am not superstitious,’ Charlotte replied, ‘and would pay no attention to these obscure stirrings if that was all they were; but mostly they are instinctive recollections of the happy or unhappy consequences of our own or other people’s past actions. There is nothing of more significance in any situation than the intervention of a third party. I have known friends, brothers and sisters, lovers, married couples, whose relationship has been altogether changed, whose life has been turned upside down, by the chance or intended arrival of another person.’

‘That might well happen with people who live with their eyes shut,’ Eduard replied, ‘not with those who, educated by experience, are more aware of themselves.’

‘Awareness, my dear,’ Charlotte rejoined, ‘is no sufficient weapon for him who wields it; it is often, indeed, a dangerous one; and this much at least emerges from all our talk, that we should not be precipitate. Give it a few days more: do not decide now!’

‘As matters stand,’ Eduard answered, ‘we should still be precipitate if we decided after a few weeks more. We have argued back and forth the reasons for and against; it is time for a decision, and now the best thing would really be to leave the decision to chance.’

‘I know that when you cannot make up your mind you like to act on a throw of the dice,’ Charlotte replied, ‘but in so serious a matter as this I would regard such a proceeding as wicked.’

‘But what am I to write to the Captain?’ Eduard exclaimed, ‘for I have to set about it right away,’

‘A calm, sensible, soothing letter,’ said Charlotte.

‘That is as good as no letter at all,’ Eduard replied.

‘And yet,’ said Charlotte, ‘in many instances it is better and kinder to write nothing than not to write.’

CHAPTER TWO

E
DUARD
was alone in his room. Charlotte’s rehearsal of the vicissitudes of his life, together with the lively realization of their mutual position and prospects, had in truth aroused his naturally genial spirits in a very pleasant manner. He had felt so very contented when he was with her he had already begun composing in his head a friendly and sympathetic but soothing and non-committal letter to the Captain. But when he went to his desk and took up his friend’s letter to read it through again he was instantly overcome once more by the mournful position in which that good man found himself. The painful sensations of which he had been the victim during the past few days came to life again. It seemed impossible he should abandon his friend to so distressing a situation.

Eduard was not used to denying himself anything. He was an only boy, and pampered, and his wealthy parents had doted on him. They had persuaded him to marry a woman far older than himself, an unconventional but very advantageous match. His wife had in turn indulged him in every way, she had tried by a limitless liberality to requite his gallant conduct towards her. After her death, which was not long delayed, he was his own master. He could travel wherever he liked, he could do whatever he liked. His desires were moderate, but he had an appetite for many and various things. He was candid, amiable, stout-hearted, he was even valiant if he had to be. What was there in all the world that could stand in his way!

To that present moment he had had everything he wanted. He had even got Charlotte, he had at long last won her
through an obstinate constancy which bordered on the fabulous. But now, just as he was also going to get the friend of his youth and thus so to speak round off his whole existence, he felt himself for the first time contradicted and crossed. He was filled with annoyance and impatience. He took up his pen several times and laid it down again because he could not make up his mind what he ought to write. He did not want to oppose his wife’s wishes, but he was unable to do what she wanted him to do. Agitated as he was, he found it quite impossible to compose a tranquil letter. The most natural thing would be for him to try for a postponement. In a few words he begged his friend’s forgiveness for not having written to him of late and for not writing at length that day, and promised to send him shortly a more informative letter that would set his mind at rest.

Charlotte employed the opportunity on the following day, while they were strolling towards the same spot, to resume their conversation, perhaps in the conviction there is no surer way of blunting an intention than talking it over as often as possible.

This reiteration suited Eduard very well. He was affable and engaging. That was his way. Being susceptible he easily flared up, and he could press you too hard when there was something he wanted, and you could get impatient with him for his obstinacy; but then too he was always so thoughtful of other people and always so considerate you had to like him even when he was being a burden.

That was his way, and it was in that way he first got Charlotte into a good mood and then charmed her into confusion, so that she said finally: ‘I do believe you want me to grant my lover what I refused my husband!’

And then she went on: ‘In any event, my dear, you shall know that your wishes and the spirited way you urge them do not leave me entirely unmoved or untouched. They compel me to make a confession. I too have been keeping something
back. I find myself in a similar situation to you. I have been imposing the same restraint upon myself as I now require you to exercise.’

‘I am delighted to hear it,’ said Eduard. ‘I see it is a good thing for husband and wife to have the occasional disagreement, since they thereby come to learn things about one another.’

‘Well then,’ said Charlotte, ‘you shall now come to learn that my sentiments towards Ottilie are the same as yours towards the Captain. I do not like to think of the dear child at the boarding-school. She finds conditions there grievously oppressive. My daughter Luciane was born to live in the world and there she is learning to live in the world. She takes in her languages and her history, and whatever else they teach her, as easily as her piano-playing. With her vivacious nature and lively memory she can, one might almost say, forget everything one minute and remember it again the next. She excels all the others in the freedom of her deportment, the gracefulness of her dancing, the becoming ease of her conversation, and through an innately commanding personality she has made herself queen of her little circle. The headmistress of the establishment regards her as a little goddess who is blossoming only now under her care and who will bring her credit and the confidence of others, which will produce an influx of more young ladies into her school. The opening pages of her letters and monthly reports are never anything but hymns to the excellence of such a child, which I of course know how to translate into my own prose. But when she finally comes to speak of Ottilie there is only excuse upon excuse that a girl otherwise evolving so well should have no wish to develop her talents or display any accomplishments. The little she adds to this is likewise no puzzle to me, since I perceive in the dear child the entire character of her mother, who was my closest friend and grew up beside me and whose daughter I would certainly have made into a lovely
creature if I could have had her care and education in my charge.

‘But since that does not accord with our plans, and one ought not to be for ever chopping and changing and introducing novelties, I prefer to endure the present state of affairs, and I even overcome the unpleasant feeling it gives me when my daughter, who knows very well that poor Ottilie is totally dependent upon us, haughtily parades her advantages before her, and so to some extent nullifies our kindness.

‘Yet who is sufficiently cultivated not to make his superiority over another sometimes cruelly evident? Who is sufficiently elevated not to have to suffer sometimes under such behaviour? These trials only enhance Ottilie’s worth; but since I have come clearly to see the painful position she is in, I have been making efforts to have her transferred somewhere else. I expect a reply hourly, and when it comes I shall not delay. So that, my love, is how I am placed. We both, you see, bear similar sorrows in a kind and loyal heart. Let us bear them together since they do not cancel one another out.’

‘What strange creatures we are,’ Eduard said, smiling. ‘If we can only banish from our sight whatever gives us sorrow we believe we have abolished it. In big affairs we are capable of great sacrifice, but to give way on some single issue is a demand we are seldom equal to. That is how my mother was. As long as I lived with her as a boy or a youth she was never free of apprehensions. If I was late home, I must have met with an accident; if I got soaked in a shower, I was certain to catch a fever. And when I journeyed away from her it was as if I scarcely belonged to her any more.

‘If we consider it more closely,’ he went on, ‘we are both acting in a highly irresponsible and foolish manner to leave in misery and oppression two of the noblest natures on earth, who are moreover so close to our hearts, merely so as not to expose ourselves to danger. If this should not be called selfishness
I know not what should! Take Ottilie, let me have the Captain, and in God’s name let us make a trial of it!’

‘We might well venture to do so,’ Charlotte said doubtfully, ‘if the danger were to us alone. But do you consider it advisable to have the Captain and Ottilie sharing the same roof, a man of about your age, of the age – I may flatter you with this only because we are quite alone – at which a man first becomes capable of love and worthy of love, and a girl with Ottilie’s advantages?’