May 15.—The dinner-parties which women in society condemn themselves to the task of giving become less and less intelligible to me as I see them from so close a point of view. How little pleasure they seem to give to any except very young or very old people! It is a kind of slavery: penal servitude with hard labour. I am sure neither of the Eckensteins gets the slightest personal pleasure out of these big dinners which they are so constantly giving. I am equally sure that the people who accept their invitations would generally rather not come; that they accept them largely because it is difficult to write and say I will not come; partly out of a vague hope, almost invariably deceived, that they will meet some delightful new person; partly out of the mere social necessity of killing time. I have never seen so much before of a London season, and I shall be glad when it is over.
August 10.—They have taken a house for the summer down here in this remote part of my own county, Cornwall; there is fishing for the Baron, and golf not far off, and boating, I suppose. The heat in London was becoming intolerable; my old headaches began to come back; and I was only too glad to say yes when the Baroness asked me, almost hesitatingly, if I would come with them. Here I have nothing to do; we walk on the cliffs, drive across Cornwall and back again, sit under the trees on this lawn, from which one can hear the sea, not quite knowing if it is the sound of the sea or of the trees. In short, one is idle, and in the open air. I am well again already; only, inexpressibly lazy.
The Baroness and I are thrown together so much, by the mere loneliness of the place, and the determined absence of the Baron, that we are getting to know one another better. In driving and walking she invariably keeps on my left; for which I am grateful to her. She is a good walker, and cares for the sea, I think, as much as I do.
Is it chiefly the influence of the place, the weather, the homeliness and familiarity of the old manor-house, where we sit and walk in the garden, as in a grassy opening in the midst of a wood? That, and the stillness and unconfined space on the cliffs, where one can sit silent for so long, until only intimate words come; all that, I am sure, has had its influence on both of us, certainly on me. The Baroness has begun to question me about myself, and I, who hate confidences, find myself telling her what I have told no one.
I have told her about Clare, about my thoughts, my ideas, my sensations, all that I have up to now only confessed to my journal. How is it that she draws my secrets out of me, and how is it that I feel a pleasure in telling them to her?
August 15.—To-day we drove to the Lizard, and sat for an hour on that high peak of rocks which goes down into the sea at this last southerly edge of England. The sea was steel-blue, almost motionless except where it made a little circle of foam around each rock, and it seemed to stretch endlessly, as if it flowed over all the rest of the world. Ships were going by, with sails and black smoke, with a great haste to be somewhere. We sat silent for a time, and then she began to tell me about herself; little confidences of no moment, only they seemed to be hesitating on the verge of some fuller confidence. At first I thought she was going to tell me all; but the wind began to get chill, and the sun faded out behind clouds, and her mood changed, and she got up, and we went back to the carriage.
August 20.—At last I know the whole story, or as much of it as I am likely to know. Last night, after dinner, we were sitting alone in the garden, in a corner where the trees darken the grass; she sat with her hand half covering her face, in that attitude which is habitual with her, though only the right side of her face was visible, and the long silence became more and more intimate until at last she spoke. She began to tell me of herself, and first of her childhood among the Bohemian woods, her escapes from the army of governesses and tutors, her dreams in the depths of the forest, the 'Buch der Lieder' read by moonlight and thrust under the pillow as she fell asleep: in short, a very pretty, very German, sentimental education. Then the young English tutor, with his tragic beauty, his Byronic sighs; she pities, admires, falls in love with him; their meetings, declarations; they plot a romantic elopement, but the coachman turns traitor; the Byronic gentleman is dismissed, and the girl sent to her cousins in Vienna, where she begins to see the world, and to dream more worldly dreams. The Baron presents himself, with his title, his money, his serious reputation; the parents implore her to accept him, and she accepts him, in order that she may accomplish a social duty. By this time she has made innumerable friends, Vienna is the world to her, she cannot exist without people, excitement, admiration; and when the Baron, who hunts during half the year, takes her away to his castle, and leaves her there, from morning to night, day after day for months together, she lives the life of a prisoner, alone with her books and her more and more discontented thoughts. Time passes, and the husband whom she has never loved becomes a polite stranger, then an unwelcome guest. He sees indifference passing into aversion, and makes no attempt to arrest the course of things. It is enough if she is submissive, and his pride does not so much as dream of a revolt.