Chapter XII: Part IV: I (3)

I prayed to God, if God there was, to preserve even my bitterest foes from such agony.

At Basle I was overwhelmed with an irresistible desire to revisit all those places in Switzerland where we had stayed together, to gladden my sad heart with memories of happy hours spent with her and the children.

I stayed for a week in Geneva and some days at Ouchy, hunted by my misery from hotel to hotel, without peace or rest, like a lost soul, like the wandering Jew. I spent my nights in tears, haunted by the little figures of my beloved children; I visited the places they had visited; I fed "their" seagulls on the Lake of Geneva, a poor, restless ghost, a miserable phantom.

Every morning I expected a letter from Marie, but no letter came. She was too clever to furnish her opponent with written evidence. I wrote to her several times a day, love-letters, forgiving her for all her crimes--but I never posted them.

Doubtless, my judges, if I had been destined to end my days in a lunatic asylum, my fate would have come upon me in those hours of keenest agony and bitterest sorrow.

My power of endurance was exhausted; I wondered whether Marie's confession had not been a ruse, so as to get rid of me and begin life all over again with her unknown lover, or, perhaps, to live with her Danish friend. I saw my children in the hands of a "stepfather" or the clutches of a "stepmother"; Marie would be quite rich with the proceeds of my collected works; she would perhaps write the story of my life as seen through the eyes of the unnatural woman who had come between us. The instinct of self-preservation stirred within me; I conceived a cunning plan. The separation from my family paralysed me mentally; I decided to return to them and stay with them until I had written the story of Marie's crimes. In this way she would become the unconscious tool of my revenge, which I could throw away when I had no further use for it.

With this object in view I sent her a telegram, business-like, free from all sentimentality; I informed her that my petition for a divorce had been refused; pretended that I required a power of attorney from her, and suggested an interview at Romanshorn, on this side of the Lake of Constance.

* * * * *

I despatched the telegram with a sense of relief. On the following day I took the train and in due time arrived at the appointed place. The week of suffering was a thing of the past; my heart was beating normally, my eyes shone with added lustre; I drew a deep breath at the sight of the hills on the opposite shore, where my children lived. The steamer approached the landing stage; my eyes searched for Marie.

Presently I caught sight of her on the deck, her face woe-begone, ten years older. The sight of her, suddenly grown old, wrung my heart. She walked with dragging footsteps, her eyelids were red with weeping, her cheeks hollow and drooping.

At that moment all feeling of hatred and disgust was swamped by pity. I felt a strong temptation to take her into my arms, but I pulled myself together, drew myself up and assumed the devil-may-care expression of a young blood who had come to a tryst. When I looked at her more closely I discovered in her a strange resemblance to her Danish friend; the likeness was really extraordinary; she had the same expression, the same pose, the same gestures, the same way of wearing her hair. Had she played me this last trick? Had she come to me straight from her "friend"?

Warned by these details, I recapitulated the part I meant to play. While I accompanied her to the hotel she was depressed and ill at ease, but she kept her self-possession. She questioned me very intelligently on the projected divorce proceedings, and when she found that I exhibited no trace of grief or emotion, she dropped her woe-begone aspect and began to treat me, as far as she dared, with a certain condescension.

During the interview she reminded me so much of her friend that I was tempted to ask for news of the lady. I was especially struck by a very tragic pose, a favourite one of her friend's, a pose which was accompanied by a certain gesture of the hand which rested on the table ... ugh!

I rang for wine. She drank greedily and became sentimental.

I took the opportunity to ask after the little ones. She burst into tears; she said that she had suffered greatly during the past week; from morning till night the children had worried her with questions about their father; she did not see how they could get on without me.

All at once she noticed the absence of my wedding-ring; she became agitated.

"Your wedding-ring?" she gasped breathlessly.

"I sold it in Geneva. There's no need to ask what I did with the money."

She grew pale.

"Then we are quits. Shall we make a fresh start?"

"Is that what you call fair play? You committed an act fraught with tragic consequences for the whole family, for through it I am compelled to doubt the legitimacy of my children. You are guilty of having tampered with the lineage of a family. You have dishonoured four people: your three children of doubtful paternity and your husband, whom your infidelity has made a public laughing-stock. What, on the other hand, are the consequences of my act?"

She wept. I remained firm. I said that the divorce proceedings must go on, that I should adopt the children--in the meantime she could remain in my house, if she liked. Would it not be the free life she had always been dreaming of? She had always cursed matrimony.

She reflected for a moment. My proposal did not please her.

"I remember you saying you would like the position of a governess in the house of a widower. Here's the widower for you!"

"Give me time.... We shall see.... But in the meantime do you intend to live with us?"

"If you ask me to."

"We are waiting for you."

And for the sixth time I returned to my family, but this time firmly resolved to use the remaining weeks to finish my story....