“Do you not think so?” she added.
“You do come to a point at last,” said the Scottish poetess, “when your work is a real source of satisfaction.”
“Do you write poetry then?” asked George of Lettie.
“I! Oh, dear no! I have tried strenuously to make up a Limerick for a competition, but in vain. So you see, I am a failure there. Did you know I have a son, though?—a marvellous little fellow, is he not, Leslie?—he is my work. I am a wonderful mother, am I not, Leslie?”
“Too devoted,” he replied.
“There!” she exclaimed in triumph—“When I have to sign my name and occupation in a visitor’s book, it will be ‘——Mother’. I hope my business will flourish,” she concluded, smiling.
There was a touch of ironical brutality in her now. She was, at the bottom, quite sincere. Having reached that point in a woman’s career when most, perhaps all of the things in life seem worthless and insipid, she had determined to put up with it, to ignore her own self, to empty her own potentialities into the vessel of another or others, and to live her life at second hand. This peculiar abnegation of self is the resource of a woman for the escaping of the responsibilities of her own development. Like a nun, she puts over her living face a veil, as a sign that the woman no longer exists for herself: she is the servant of God, of some man, of her children, or may be of some cause. As a servant, she is no longer responsible for her self, which would make her terrified and lonely. Service is light and easy. To be responsible for the good progress of one’s life is terrifying. It is the most insufferable form of loneliness, and the heaviest of responsibilities. So Lettie indulged her husband, but did not yield her independence to him; rather it was she who took much of the responsibility of him into her hands, and therefore he was so devoted to her. She had, however, now determined to abandon the charge of herself to serve her children. When the children grew up, either they would unconsciously fling her away, back upon herself again in bitterness and loneliness, or they would tenderly cherish her, chafing at her love-bonds occasionally.
George looked and listened to all the flutter of conversation, and said nothing. It seemed to him like so much unreasonable rustling of pieces of paper, of leaves of books, and so on. Later in the evening Lettie sang, no longer Italian folk songs, but the fragmentary utterances of Debussy and Strauss. These also to George were quite meaningless, and rather wearisome. It made him impatient to see her wasting herself upon them.
“Do you like those songs?” she asked in the frank, careless manner she affected.
“Not much,” he replied, ungraciously.