II
THE brief marriage ran its course, depleting rather than enriching me,and I know you realized before the hurried, dreadful end that my tiewith yourself was strengthened rather than endangered, and that I tookfrom you nothing that I might give it to her. That death shouldintervene so swiftly, leaving her but an interval of a month between thealtar and the grave, you could foreknow as little as I or she; yet inthat brief space of time you learned that I had robbed you of nothingthat was your precious due, while she as surely realized that theamazing love she poured so lavishly upon me woke no response--beyond adeep and tender pity, strangely deep and singularly tender I admit, butassuredly very different from love.
Now this, I think, you already know and in some measure understand; butwhat you cannot know--since it is a portion of her secret, of thatambushed meaning, as I termed it, given to me when she lay dying--is thepathetic truth that her discovery wrought no touch of disenchantment inher. I think she knew with shame that she had caught me with her lowestweapon, yet still hoped that the highest in her might complete andelevate her victory. She knew, at any rate, neither dismay nordisappointment; of reproach there was no faintest hint. She did not evenonce speak of it directly, though her fine, passionate face made meaware of the position. Of the usual human reaction, that is, there wasno slightest trace; she neither chided nor implored; she did not weep.The exact opposite of what I might have expected took place before myvery eyes.
For she turned and faced me, empty as I was. The soul in her, realizingthe truth, stood erect to meet the misery of lonely pain that inevitablylay ahead--in some sense as though she welcomed it already; and,strangest of all, she blossomed, physically as well as mentally, into afuller revelation of gracious loveliness than before, sweeter and moreexquisite, indeed, than anything life had yet shown to me. Moreover,having captured me, she changed; the grossness I had discerned, thatwhich had led me to my own undoing, vanished completely as though itwere transmuted into desires and emotions of a loftier kind. Somepurpose, some intention, a hope immensely resolute shone out of her, andof such spiritual loveliness, it seemed to me, that I watched it in akind of dumb amazement.
I watched it--unaware at first of my own shame, emptied of any emotionwhatsoever, I think, but that of a startled worship before the grandeurof her generosity. It seemed she listened breathlessly for the beatingof my heart, and hearing none, resolved that she would pour her own lifeinto it, regardless of pain, of loss, of sacrifice, that she might makeit live. She undertook her mission, that is to say, and this mission, insome mysterious way, and according to some code of conduct undivined byme, yet passionately honoured, was to give--regardless of herself or ofresponse. I caught myself sometimes thinking of a child who wouldinstinctively undo some earlier grievous wrong. She loved memarvellously.
I know not how to describe to you the lavish wealth of selfless devotionshe bathed me in during the brief torturing and unfulfilled periodbefore the end. It made me aware of new depths and heights in humannature. It taught me a new beauty that even my finest dreams had leftunmentioned. Into the region that great souls inhabit a glimpse wasgiven me. My own dreadful weakness was laid bare. And an eternal hungerwoke in me--that I might love.
That hunger remained unsatisfied. I prayed, I yearned, I suffered; Icould have decreed myself a deservedly cruel death; it seemed Istretched my little nature to unendurable limits in the fierce hope thatthe Gift of the Gods might be bestowed upon me, and that her divineemotion might waken a response within my leaden soul. But all in vain.My attitude, in spite of every prayer, of every effort, remained no morethan a searching and unavailing pity, but a pity that held no seed of amere positive emotion, least of all, of love. The heart in me layunredeemed; it knew ashamed and very tender gratitude; but it did notbeat for her. I could not love.
I have told you bluntly, frankly, of my physical feelings towards Marionand her beauty. It is a confession that I give into my own safe keeping.I think, perhaps, that you, though cast in a finer mould, may notdespise them utterly, nor too contemptuously misinterpret them. Thelegend that twins may share a single soul has always seemed to megrotesque and unpoetic nonsense, a cruel and unnecessary notion too: aman is sufficiently imperfect without suffering this further subtractionfrom his potentialities. And yet it is true, in our own case, that youhave exclusive monopoly of the ethereal qualities, while to me are givenchiefly the physical attributes of the vigorous and healthy male--theanimal: my six feet three, my muscular system, my inartistic andpedestrian temperament. Fairly clean-minded, I hope I may be, but beyondall question I am the male animal incarnate. It was, indeed, thethousand slaveries of the senses, individually so negligible,collectively so overwhelming, that forced me upon my knees before herphysical loveliness. I must tell you now that this potent spell,alternating between fiery desire and the sincerest of repugnance,continued to operate. I complete the confession by adding briefly, thatafter marriage she resented and repelled all my advances. A deep sadnesscame upon her; she wept; and I desisted. It was my soul that she desiredwith the fire of her mighty love, and not my body.... And again, sinceit is to myself and to you alone I tell it, I would add this vital fact:it was this "new beauty which my finest dreams have left unmentioned"that made it somehow possible for me to desist, both against my animalwill, yet willingly.
I have told you that, when dying, she revealed to me a portion of her"secret." This portion of a sacred confidence lies so safe within myeverlasting pity that I may share it with you without the remorse of abetrayal. Full understanding we need never ask; the solution, I amconvinced, is scarcely obtainable in this world. The message, however,was incomplete because the breath that framed it into broken wordsfailed suddenly; the heart, so strangely given into my unworthy keeping,stopped beating as you shall hear upon the very edge of full disclosure.The ambushed meaning I have hinted at remained--a hint.