The Moon and Sixpence
for any passing line that might indicate a settling emotion. Her face
was a mask that told nothing. Her hands lay on her lap motionless, one
in the other loosely clasped. I knew from what I had heard that she was
a woman of violent passions; and that injurious blow that she had given
Dirk, the man who had loved her so devotedly, betrayed a sudden temper
and a horrid cruelty. She had abandoned the safe shelter of her
husband’s protection and the comfortable ease of a well-provided
establishment for what she could not but see was an extreme hazard. It
showed an eagerness for adventure, a readiness for the hand-to-mouth,
which the care she took of her home and her love of good housewifery
made not a little remarkable. She must be a woman of complicated
character, and there was something dramatic in the contrast of that
with her demure appearance.
I was excited by the encounter, and my fancy worked busily while I
sought to concentrate myself on the game I was playing. I always tried
my best to beat Strickland, because he was a player who despised the
opponent he vanquished; his exultation in victory made defeat more
difficult to bear. On the other hand, if he was beaten he took it with
complete good-humour. He was a bad winner and a good loser. Those who
think that a man betrays his character nowhere more clearly than when
he is playing a game might on this draw subtle inferences.
When he had finished I called the waiter to pay for the drinks, and
left them. The meeting had been devoid of incident. No word had been
said to give me anything to think about, and any surmises I might make
were unwarranted. I was intrigued. I could not tell how they were
getting on. I would have given much to be a disembodied spirit so that
I could see them in the privacy of the studio and hear what they talked
about. I had not the smallest indication on which to let my imagination
work.
Chapter XXXIII
Two or three days later Dirk Stroeve called on me.
“I hear you’ve seen Blanche,” he said.
“How on earth did you find out?”
“I was told by someone who saw you sitting with them. Why didn’t you
tell me?”
“I thought it would only pain you.”
“What do I care if it does? You must know that I want to hear the
smallest thing about her.”
I waited for him to ask me questions.
“What does she look like?” he said.
“Absolutely unchanged.”
“Does she seem happy?”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“How can I tell? We were in a café; we were playing chess; I had no
opportunity to speak to her.”
“Oh, but couldn’t you tell by her face?”
I shook my head. I could only repeat that by no word, by no hinted
gesture, had she given an indication of her feelings. He must know
better than I how great were her powers of self-control. He clasped his
hands emotionally.
“Oh, I’m so frightened. I know something is going to happen, something
terrible, and I can do nothing to stop it.”
“What sort of thing?” I asked.
“Oh, I don’t know,” he moaned, seizing his head with his hands. “I
foresee some terrible catastrophe.”
Stroeve had always been excitable, but now he was beside himself; there
was no reasoning with him. I thought it probable enough that Blanche
Stroeve would not continue to find life with Strickland tolerable, but
one of the falsest of proverbs is that you must lie on the bed that you
have made. The experience of life shows that people are constantly
doing things which must lead to disaster, and yet by some chance manage
to evade the result of their folly. When Blanche quarrelled with
Strickland she had only to leave him, and her husband was waiting
humbly to forgive and forget. I was not prepared to feel any great
sympathy for her.
“You see, you don’t love her,” said Stroeve.
“After all, there’s nothing to prove that she is unhappy. For all we
know they may have settled down into a most domestic couple.”
Stroeve gave me a look with his woeful eyes.
“Of course it doesn’t much matter to you, but to me it’s so serious, so
intensely serious.”
I was sorry if I had seemed impatient or flippant.
“Will you do something for me?” asked Stroeve.
“Willingly.”
“Will you write to Blanche for me?”
“Why can’t you write yourself?”
“I’ve written over and over again. I didn’t expect her to answer. I
don’t think she reads the letters.”
“You make no account of feminine curiosity. Do you think she could
resist?”
“She could—mine.”
I looked at him quickly. He lowered his eyes. That answer of his seemed
to me strangely humiliating. He was conscious that she regarded him
with an indifference so profound that the sight of his handwriting
would have not the slightest effect on her.
“Do you really believe that she’ll ever come back to you?” I asked.
“I want her to know that if the worst comes to the worst she can count
on me. That’s what I want you to tell her.”
I took a sheet of paper.
“What is it exactly you wish me to say?”
This is what I wrote:
DEAR MRS. STROEVE,
Dirk wishes me to tell you that if at any time you want him he will be
grateful for the opportunity of being of service to you. He has no
ill-feeling towards you on account of anything that has happened. His
love for you is unaltered. You will always find him at the following
address:
Chapter XXXIV
But though I was no less convinced than Stroeve that the connection
between Strickland and Blanche would end disastrously, I did not expect
the issue to take the tragic form it did. The summer came, breathless
and sultry, and even at night there was no coolness to rest one’s jaded
nerves. The sun-baked streets seemed to give back the heat that had
beat down on them during the day, and the passers-by dragged their feet
along them wearily. I had not seen Strickland for weeks. Occupied with
other things, I had ceased to think of him and his affairs. Dirk, with
his vain lamentations, had begun to bore me, and I avoided his society.
It was a sordid business, and I was not inclined to trouble myself with
it further.
One morning I was working. I sat in my Pyjamas. My thoughts wandered,
and I thought of the sunny beaches of Brittany and the freshness of the
sea. By my side was the empty bowl in which the concierge had brought
me my _café au lait_ and the fragment of croissant which I had not had
appetite enough to eat. I heard the concierge in the next room emptying
my bath. There was a tinkle at my bell, and I left her to open the
door. In a moment I heard Stroeve’s voice asking if I was in. Without
moving, I shouted to him to come. He entered the room quickly, and came
up to the table at which I sat.
“She’s killed herself,” he said hoarsely.
“What do you mean?” I cried, startled.
He made movements with his lips as though he were speaking, but no
sound issued from them. He gibbered like an idiot. My heart thumped
against my ribs, and, I do not know why, I flew into a temper.
“For God’s sake, collect yourself, man,” I said. “What on earth are you
talking about?”
He made despairing gestures with his hands, but still no words came
from his mouth. He might have been struck dumb. I do not know what came
over me; I took him by the shoulders and shook him. Looking back, I am
vexed that I made such a fool of myself; I suppose the last restless
nights had shaken my nerves more than I knew.
“Let me sit down,” he gasped at length.
I filled a glass with St. Galmier, and gave it to him to drink. I held
it to his mouth as though he were a child. He gulped down a mouthful,
and some of it was spilt on his shirt-front.
“Who’s killed herself?”
I do not know why I asked, for I knew whom he meant. He made an effort
to collect himself.
“They had a row last night. He went away.”
“Is she dead?”
“No; they’ve taken her to the hospital.”
“Then what are you talking about?” I cried impatiently. “Why did you
say she’d killed herself?”
“Don’t be cross with me. I can’t tell you anything if you talk to me
like that.”
I clenched my hands, seeking to control my irritation. I attempted a
smile.
“I’m sorry. Take your time. Don’t hurry, there’s a good fellow.”
His round blue eyes behind the spectacles were ghastly with terror. The
magnifying-glasses he wore distorted them.
“When the concierge went up this morning to take a letter she could get
no answer to her ring. She heard someone groaning. The door wasn’t
locked, and she went in. Blanche was lying on the bed. She’d been
frightfully sick. There was a bottle of oxalic acid on the table.”
Stroeve hid his face in his hands and swayed backwards and forwards,
groaning.
“Was she conscious?”
“Yes. Oh, if you knew how she’s suffering! I can’t bear it. I can’t
bear it.”
His voice rose to a shriek.
“Damn it all, you haven’t got to bear it,” I cried impatiently. “She’s
got to bear it.”
“How can you be so cruel?”
“What have you done?”
“They sent for a doctor and for me, and they told the police. I’d given
the concierge twenty francs, and told her to send for me if anything
happened.”
He paused a minute, and I saw that what he had to tell me was very hard
to say.
“When I went she wouldn’t speak to me. She told them to send me away. I
swore that I forgave her everything, but she wouldn’t listen. She tried
to beat her head against the wall. The doctor told me that I mustn’t
remain with her. She kept on saying, ‘Send him away!’ I went, and
waited in the studio. And when the ambulance came and they put her on a
stretcher, they made me go in the kitchen so that she shouldn’t know I
was there.”
While I dressed—for Stroeve wished me to go at once with him to the
hospital—he told me that he had arranged for his wife to have a private
room, so that she might at least be spared the sordid promiscuity of a
ward. On our way he explained to me why he desired my presence; if she
still refused to see him, perhaps she would see me. He begged me to
repeat to her that he loved her still; he would reproach her for
nothing, but desired only to help her; he made no claim on her, and on
her recovery would not seek to induce her to return to him; she would
be perfectly free.
But when we arrived at the hospital, a gaunt, cheerless building, the
mere sight of which was enough to make one’s heart sick, and after
being directed from this official to that, up endless stairs and
through long, bare corridors, found the doctor in charge of the case,
we were told that the patient was too ill to see anyone that day. The
doctor was a little bearded man in white, with an offhand manner. He
evidently looked upon a case as a case, and anxious relatives as a
nuisance which must be treated with firmness. Moreover, to him the
affair was commonplace; it was just an hysterical woman who had
quarrelled with her lover and taken poison; it was constantly
happening. At first he thought that Dirk was the cause of the disaster,
and he was needlessly brusque with him. When I explained that he was
the husband, anxious to forgive, the doctor looked at him suddenly,
with curious, searching eyes. I seemed to see in them a hint of
mockery; it was true that Stroeve had the head of the husband who is
deceived. The doctor faintly shrugged his shoulders.
“There is no immediate danger,” he said, in answer to our questioning.
“One doesn’t know how much she took. It may be that she will get off
with a fright. Women are constantly trying to commit suicide for love,
but generally they take care not to succeed. It’s generally a gesture
to arouse pity or terror in their lover.”
There was in his tone a frigid contempt. It was obvious that to him
Blanche Stroeve was only a unit to be added to the statistical list of
attempted suicides in the city of Paris during the current year. He was
busy, and could waste no more time on us. He told us that if we came at