“Pepa, Pepa, do not talk so,” said Leon grasping her hand. “It is not thus that I have seen you, dreamed of, as, by degrees, you have conquered my heart and become sovereign of my affections.”
“But if you cannot love me as I am,” she said, her words almost choked with grief and bitterness, “why did you not come in time? Oh! if you had come when I wanted you, you might have found me lofty and pure! What a high and holy devotion—worthy of you indeed—you would have found under the childish follies which were nothing but the mad outbursts of an oppressed heart and a fevered fancy, if you had come in time and vouchsafed a loving word to the wilful girl, mad and foolish as she was, what a treasure of devotion would have been yours!—it was reserved for you, and in your hands it would have been refined and purified. I was a rough ore, apparently of no value—nay, I might have been a misfortune to the owner—you thought so? But all I needed was to fall into hands that were not put out to take me; I was an instrument that could yield no music excepting in the hands for which I was born, and without my natural master all was jangling discord. Do not complain then if you now find me somewhat wanting in principles and moral sense. I have suffered much; I have led a life of constant and fearful struggle with myself, my life has been passed in utter disharmony with those I have had to live with; I felt myself scorned and misunderstood and that has always weighed upon my soul; it made me unreasonable and perverse and so, by degrees, I lost that purity of soul which once I cherished for you—you who would not have it as a gift! I am not so strict as you are; my conscience is less sensitive, and I have no courage left for further sacrifices, for my heart is weary and as full of wounds as a madman who tries to kill himself. I cannot admit that the world has the right to require me to torture myself any more; it has imposed sufferings enough upon me—and so I dare to ask you too to be less severely strong, to ignore the moral susceptibilities of society, to make some concession to feeling, to remain here and see me every day, to pay me some portion of the debt you owe me—by loving a little.”
She could not command her voice to the end of her speech and burst into tears.
“It was my idiotic pride,” said Leon, more ready to accuse than to defend himself, “that has brought misery on us both. May the scorn of which you speak be visited on my own head and all the evil wrought by my mistake be mine to suffer!”
“Nay, you need no more disasters; you have had enough to go through! The fault was not all yours. I had no other merit than that of loving you; I was wilful, violent and spoilt; I quite understand your preference for ... her; and she was so handsome; I was never good-looking.... And now, now after so many years, you come to me ... and now....” She could not say it; her brow was contracted with despair, at length, with a gesture of horror, as if she saw some terrific vision she said hoarsely: “You have a wife.”
Leon could say nothing in reply to the appalling eloquence of this fact. He bent his head in silence. “A wife! handsome, saintly, impeccable!” Pepa went on. “But even so, have I not triumphed? You have left her and come to me.” And she looked up radiantly.
“No, no,” said Leon eagerly. “It is she who has left me. I loved her and did all in my power to prevent the rupture of the sacred tie that binds us; I have kept my marriage vows faithfully ... till now, when I have broken them.”
“And they are better broken!” exclaimed Pepa vehemently. “Why should you respect the judgment of fools? Why should the image of your wife come between you and me?”
“Pepa, my dearest, be calm for pity’s sake; your wild words alarm me.”
“But I tell you I have no moral sense; I lost it—you took it with my last hopes. When one is hopeless is that not the same as being wicked? I have been wicked ever since that evening when my last hope died out of me as though it had been my very soul, and left me rigid and cold—as if really and truly mad. From that moment I have gone wrong in everything; I married just as I might have flung myself into the sea; I married as a substitute for suicide. I did not know what I was doing, but there was a seed of evil in me that I actually tried to foster into growth. If only I had been well educated! but I had no education; I was a savage, and I loved to display my riches, social advantages and pinchbeck splendour,—just as the Caffirs display feathers and beads. And bitter pique rankled in my heart and made me resolve that I would give to the least worthy suitor what I had intended for the most worthy. If I could not have the best I would take the worst! Do you remember my throwing out my jewels on the dust-heap? I wanted to do the same with myself. Of what use was I if no one loved me? How could I marry a good and worthy man? It would have been folly ... no, no, I wanted to hate some one—to hate the man who was nearest to me—whom the world would call my other half, and the church pronounce my mate. You see I longed to be wicked! In our rank of life, you know, when a girl of base instincts craves for liberty, marriage is a wide and open door. In my madness I said to myself: ‘I am rich; I will marry a fool and I shall be free;’ and I never thought of my poor father. Oh yes, I have been very wicked!