Latest / Idols / Chapter 19

Transcript

Chapter 19 · Idols

• 0:00
  Chapter nineteen of Idols by William John Locke. This LibriVox recording is in the
• 0:06
  public domain recording by Simon Evers, Chapter nineteen. Her divine and selfless nature
• 0:14
  had made the offer, he had unequivocally refused it. The incident was therefore
• 0:19
  closed. Ostritchwise, he hid his head from its consequent influences in their relations
• 0:25
  and regarded them as non existent. That was the humorous aspect of his model
• 0:30
  attitude. On the other hand, he believed in himself and in his strength
• 0:34
  of will to withstand temptation. He knew that Irene was too strong and proud
• 0:39
  a woman to desire marriage with him as a social rehabititation. In fact,
• 0:43
  the thought had insulted her. He could not conceive that she loved him,
• 0:48
  wanted him for her own sake. As for himself, he could set his
• 0:51
  teeth and deny the heart hunger. Should she speak again, he would disclose
• 0:57
  to her the fact of his marriage. He hoped that no no necessity would
• 1:00
  arise. Some weeks passed. They saw each other frequently, but there were
• 1:06
  many little flaws in the frankness of their intercourse to which he wilfully blinded himself.
• 1:11
  There were times when a chance sweetness of look or phrase set his heart
• 1:15
  beating madly, when also a chance wissfulness in her manner brought him back vividly
• 1:21
  the full meaning of Harroway's offer and made him curse its futility. After a
• 1:26
  while she appeared to grow less cheerful. She would regard him with a little
• 1:30
  tender air of surprised reproach, which attributed to the weariness of her lot.
• 1:36
  One Saturday night, they walked from Bedford Square, where the Cahusacs lived,
• 1:40
  to Hyde Park Corner before they took the omnibus for High Street, Kensington.
• 1:45
  In spite of the bright evening they had just spent, the walk was singularly
• 1:48
  silent. Towards the end, she leaned on his arm, feeling tired.
• 1:53
  Involuntarily he drew her closer to him, but the constraint grew greater. In
• 1:59
  the omnibus, he asked her whether she felt downhearted. She alleged a headache.
• 2:04
  His ready sympathy sprang to her, why had she walked all that distance
• 2:07
  to see whether exercise would remedy it? She replied, Life is weighing upon
• 2:13
  uurreenie. He said, as he parted from her, at her door.
• 2:17
  It is Hugh a little, she answered, and the stone staircase was not
• 2:22
  too dimly lighted for him not to perceive once more the curious reproachful surprise in
• 2:27
  her a glance, he went away, full of passionate remorse for what he
• 2:30
  had brought upon her. Her life was crushing her. A desperate remedy flashed
• 2:36
  through his mind, a terrible temptation. Yet keenly sensitive to that within him
• 2:42
  which concerned Irene, he perceived an ugly, leering, selfishness beneath the surface,
• 2:46
  and he put the temptation from him. Meanwhile, the series of articles
• 2:52
  of the signature Delta had attracted attention. Her identity leaked out. A paragraph
• 2:58
  appearing in the literary notes of one journal, and copied by several others,
• 3:01
  revealed it to the general public. In these modern days, a pseudonym is
• 3:07
  as effective as a disguise and a jacket worn inside out. She was disturbed
• 3:10
  in mind, dreading publicity, Delta had become as soiled a name as Irene.
• 3:15
  Meriam would not that lesson the influence of her work. Men would pass
• 3:21
  her articles by with that contemptuous shrug, and her appeals would be unheeded to
• 3:27
  cry, and the wilderness is task enough to cry in a voice scorned by
• 3:30
  the few stragglers who hear, would depress the Baptist himself. Then the came
• 3:37
  a day shortly after her walk from Bedford Square with Hugh, when Jane brought
• 3:40
  her a gentleman's card bearing a name with which she was unfamiliar and a penciled
• 3:46
  legend Women's Democratic League. She decided to see the visitor. A red haired
• 3:53
  man with dubious linen and persuasive manners, was admitted. She motioned him to
• 3:58
  a chair. He put hat on the ground and explained his mission. Her
• 4:02
  articles had been so appreciated by the League that he'd been deputed to invite her
• 4:05
  to lecture on behalf of that body. Irene was gratified, but alarmed.
• 4:13
  Writing was one thing, lecturing another. I am sorry to refuse, she
• 4:17
  told the man, but I have given up my little attempts at public life.
• 4:23
  Then it a great pity, missus, Miriam, so many would welcome
• 4:26
  you back again. Do think over it. We could promise you a most
• 4:30
  enthusiastic audience. In fact, we might scheme out a short tour, all
• 4:34
  expenses paid, and a handsome percentage on the takings. Your name would a
• 4:39
  draw. You are mistaken, said Irene frankly. Besides, oh no,
• 4:45
  he interrupted quickly, Your name is so well known all over England people would
• 4:49
  run to see you putting things on a commercial basis. So long as people
• 4:54
  come, their object doesn't matter. Then Irene saw, for a moment she
• 5:00
  gasped for breath. It was a calm proposal to make capital out of her
• 5:04
  notoriety. She rose and pressed the electric bell by her side, and turned
• 5:10
  upon him with flaming cheeks and anger in her eyes. How dare you,
• 5:15
  she cried. The man took up his hat and broke into apologies. Jane
• 5:19
  appeared at the door. Show this person out, said Irene. The Democratic
• 5:25
  delegate retired ignominiously. Irene walked about the room mechanically rearranging perfectly ordered arranged trifles
• 5:33
  in the feminine way, dazed with wrath and humiliation. A short while afterwards,
• 5:40
  she did not know whether to rage against the abandoned cynicism of the proposal,
• 5:44
  or to laugh cynically at her own touching simplicity in the matter of her
• 5:46
  former mental disquietude. In the midst of her anger arrived Eleanor Cahusac on a
• 5:53
  flying call. Irene related the sea midway between tears and laughter. Missus Cahusac
• 6:00
  listened, sympathized, and as soon as she reached her home, informed her
• 6:03
  husband of the insult that had been offered to Irene, And the next afternoon,
• 6:09
  Cahusac, meeting Hugh by chance in the strand, repeated his wife's story.
• 6:14
  An hour later, Hugh was ringing furiously at Irene's door. He found
• 6:19
  her sitting before the fire, with her writing board on her lap. She
• 6:23
  raised startled eyes as he entered, laid his hat and stick on a table,
• 6:27
  and came to her side. She rose instinctively, leaving the board on
• 6:30
  the broad arm of the chair. Is what Cahusac tells me, true Rene.
• 6:35
  He cried, impetuously about that scoundrel insulting you yesterday? I told Eleanor
• 6:43
  something. Why did you not tell me last evening? What use would there
• 6:47
  be in worrying you for nothing? She replied evasively. The light of the
• 6:53
  chandelier beneath which she was standing fell upon her averted face. The heaviness of
• 6:58
  her eye had struck him a crumpled all of a handkerchief in her hand confirmed
• 7:01
  to the betraying lids, and I come in unexpectedly and find you crying.
• 7:06
  You would not have told me the cause of that either. I have no
• 7:11
  right to worry you, she replied again. I wish to God I had
• 7:15
  the right to make you. He cried passionately, goaded by the insult offered
• 7:19
  her and by the evidence of our unhappiness. I don't think you do,
• 7:24
  she said in a low voice, I, he queried, Taking her by
• 7:29
  the wrist, he impulsively led her to the sofa and seated her by his
• 7:32
  side. This state of things cannot go on, he said harshly. We're
• 7:38
  losing each other. I must explain. I will tell you about that woman,
• 7:43
  the one you know of Irenus started away from him, as though the
• 7:46
  words were a lash. Is she between us? I don't want to hear
• 7:50
  a breath of her. I won't listen. What is she to me?
• 7:54
  Let us continue in the old way. We have come to the end of
• 7:58
  it, said Hugh. Do you love her? She asked fiercely. I
• 8:03
  have every reason to hate and despise her, said Hugh between his teeth.
• 8:07
  You know very well that I love you with every fiber of my being.
• 8:13
  Irene held him with her eyes. A few seconds seemed to r incalculable time.
• 8:18
  And you know that I love you with all my heart and soul,
• 8:24
  So why will you not take me? She said? Slowly, He sprang
• 8:28
  to his feet. You love me like that? The great wonder of glory
• 8:35
  that suddenly held his soul in all shone from his eyes, dazzling and confusing
• 8:39
  the woman, whose own lowered tremulously like that, he repeated, Say it
• 8:46
  again, I have told you too much already, she murmured. And then
• 8:52
  the woman's tears and tenderness all gushed forth, and she raised swimming eyes to
• 8:56
  him. Oh, Hugh, dear, why did you make me tell you?
• 9:01
  In a moment, she was sobbing in his arms, clinging to him,
• 9:03
  yielding herself to the ecstatic solace. Half shamed, she drooped her head
• 9:09
  and hid her face against his breast, and he held her tightly to him.
• 9:15
  Then there was a long, great silence. The woman's heart drank thirstily
• 9:20
  of the intoxicating flood of happiness, but the man's burned white hot in the
• 9:24
  stress of agonizing conflict. She could not see his drawn face, his short,
• 9:31
  sharp breathing only told her of her emotion, too deep for words,
• 9:35
  Its pain did not pierce through her bliss. Her fair hair rested contentedly against
• 9:41
  the molten furnace. Through such brief, fierce soul scorching fires come the tremendous
• 9:46
  decisions of life. Will you marry me, Irene? He said? At
• 9:52
  last. She moved her head for a moment, like a child. Then
• 9:56
  she raised it and drew herself gently from him. You know why I was
• 10:00
  crying. A woman is a fool, Hugh dear, When you came in,
• 10:05
  why I thought you did not want me? It was bitter, a
• 10:09
  turning of the tables. Since when have you loved me? He asked,
• 10:15
  I don't know, always perhaps, she replied, turning away. It's a
• 10:18
  question. You must never ask me how or when it had come. She
• 10:24
  knew, not what woman does. Often she may point back to some spring
• 10:28
  morning of the heart, when love burst into blossom, and say, then
• 10:33
  I knew. But she is aware that the petals had long lain, delicately
• 10:37
  folded in the sheaths, and is dimly reminiscent of growth and expansion. To
• 10:43
  the how and when of that, she can return no answer, But he
• 10:48
  rely looked back and found strange tendernesses working darkly through all the years. Could
• 10:52
  it have been possible? Her womanhood shrank frightened from suggestion, then tiptoed,
• 10:58
  with help breath up to it again. The union of the two men in
• 11:03
  her affection had dated from the first day they had spoken to her on the
• 11:05
  pianot steamer, and it had existed continuously until one broke away, leaving the
• 11:11
  other untouched. Hugh's loyal love for her had been one of the inner glories
• 11:16
  of her life. She felt it to be the complement of Gerard's. So
• 11:20
  much was clear. But was her own affection for Hugh complimentary to her love
• 11:26
  for Gerard? Could her feelings towards Gerard have maintained their homogeneousness without the other
• 11:31
  influence? Was it, in brief an inextricable dual love? She found no
• 11:39
  answers. All was a mystery at the color of an opal with a elusive
• 11:43
  wight of shame. Yet no thought of longing unsatisfied had ever tinged the purity
• 11:48
  of her wifely worship. There her soul was free from doubt. Yet again,
• 11:56
  on the other hand, he had ever been inexpressibly dear to her.
• 12:00
  The cult of their idealized brotherhood had further fused these complex emotions together, thereby
• 12:05
  rendering the mystery more inscrutable. I can never tell you, she repeated,
• 12:11
  never a hu, dear, I've been so lost and lonely. His arm
• 12:18
  closed protectingly around her. Forgive me, dear, she said, I once
• 12:24
  thought you a weak man. Perhaps that is why I did not love you
• 12:26
  at first. But now I know that you are strong, and I need
• 12:31
  your strength. That was the deep keynote of her happiness. Once she had
• 12:37
  compared the two men rock and shifting sand, idolatry had inverted her vision.
• 12:43
  It had been shifting sand and rock. She was safe on the rock now.
• 12:48
  Often lately she had looked back, in sickened wonder upon that idolatry.
• 12:54
  The whole of her true life with Gerard had revealed itself. The dull,
• 12:56
  taciturnity she had revered as strength, the ungracious compliances she had raised to tenderness
• 13:03
  or noble actions, the hundred faults she had transfigured to virtues. In vain,
• 13:09
  she looked for one sparkling deed, one act of unselfishness, one spontaneous
• 13:13
  loving caress that she had treasured even one proof of more than common mental attainment
• 13:20
  in the very workaday business of life. He had deceived her. His practice
• 13:24
  at the bar was worth little or nothing. She was stupefied at her own
• 13:28
  delusion. But now she was safe. Now she looked back upon Hugh's life
• 13:37
  and saw it filled with innumerable deeds of devotion and loyalty. His brilliance in
• 13:41
  the world was a matter not of blind faith, but of direct testimony.
• 13:46
  His heroism had not been potential, but actually displayed. Twice. She had
• 13:50
  known him to face death, once to save his friend's life, once to
• 13:54
  save a woman's honor. Of the latter, she was convinced. Convinced also
• 13:58
  of his impeccability as regards the woman. On the part this creature had played
• 14:03
  in his life, she was too proud to speculate. He did not love
• 14:07
  her. That was certain. It sufficed the hungering woman. The strong soul
• 14:11
  refused to seek further. Yes, she was safe. The foundations of her
• 14:18
  life laid on the living rock, the overwhelming happiness of it. She stood
• 14:24
  before him, radiant, a black silk blouse with frilled upstanding collar, likely
• 14:28
  caressing her throat. Heightened the glow in her face. He had studied its
• 14:33
  infinite variety of expression and knew it in all its phases enthusiasm, anger,
• 14:39
  sorrow, gentleness. To day it was a revelation to only one man in
• 14:46
  her life. Can a woman reveal the full glory of her soul and sex?
• 14:50
  The last shreds of his compunction were swept away by a mighty wave of
• 14:54
  pride. I would have gone through hell far to win, knew, he
• 14:58
  said. She smiled happily, unconscious of his illusion, and replied, in
• 15:05
  tender raillery, if only had to go through the hollow form of asking me?
• 15:09
  Was it so hard? I should never have asked you to marry me
• 15:13
  out of pity. I knew that, she replied, And now are you
• 15:18
  sure that you will be happy? Happy? He echoed. He laughed,
• 15:24
  walked across the room back again, and ran his fingers through his hair.
• 15:28
  The happiness began to intoxicate him. He stopped before her and took both her
• 15:33
  hands. Do you know what a man's love is? He cried. He
• 15:41
  paced his room that night in a hot fever of joy, with pulses throbbing
• 15:46
  and nerves vibrating. Irene's love was his, at last, his for ever
• 15:50
  to change life from an ill weeded garden to glittering fields of an unimagined heaven.
• 15:56
  Beyond hyperbole of speech, to preserve the ineffable gift, he would take
• 16:00
  upon himself the burden of a hundred crimes in this hour of rapture. The
• 16:06
  burden of the one he had resolved to commit sat lightly on his shoulders.
• 16:10
  She ran no risk. The secret of the marriage was safe. It had
• 16:14
  named buried to the Brighton Registrar's office. Through all the lury publicity of the
• 16:18
  trial, Minner would keep it beyond the shadow of a doubt. Aracasaba was
• 16:22
  bound body and soul to Minner. And then the crime was for the adored
• 16:26
  one's greater happiness. It would live from her the crushing weight of social loneliness.
• 16:33
  It would flood her life with the passion of a man's worship. The
• 16:37
  vision of the full harmonious days to come rose up before him. He laughed
• 16:41
  aloud. There are times when a man feels strong enough to defy fate.
• 16:48
  End of Chapter nineteen