In the Baroness’s eyes there was an expression such as is found in the eyes of some leashed beast when the butcher approaches, axe in hand. She was tortured by the smoothness of the man from whom she had never once in the last quarter of a century received anything but brutality and scorn, and from whom she had suffered the grossest of humiliations—when no one was listening.
“What do you want, Siegmund?” she asked, with painful effort.
The Baron stepped close up to her, bit his lips, and looked at her for ten or twelve seconds with a fearful expression on his face.
She then seized him by the left arm: “What is the matter with Eberhard?” she cried; “tell me, tell me everything! There is something wrong.”
The Baron, with a gesture of stinging aversion, thrust her hands from him, and turned to go. There was unfathomable coldness in his conduct.
Beside herself with grief, the Baroness made up her mind to tell him, for the first time in her life, of the thousand wrongs that burned within her heart. And she did: “Oh, you monster! Why did Fate bring you into my life? Where is there another woman in the world whose lot has been like mine? Where is the woman who has lived without joy or love or esteem or freedom or peace, a burden to others and to herself? Show me another woman who goes about in silk and satin longing for death. Name me another woman who people think is happy, because the devil, who tortures her without ceasing, deceives them all. Where is there another woman who has been so shamelessly robbed of her children? For is not my daughter the captive and concubine of an insane tuft-hunter? Has not my son been taken from me through the baseness that has been practised against his sister, and the lamentable spectacle afforded him by my own powerlessness? Where, I ask high Heaven, is there another woman so cursed as I have been?”
She threw herself down on her bosom, and burrowed her face into the cushion.
The Baron was surprised at the feverish eloquence of his wife; he had accustomed himself to her mute resignation, as he might have accustomed himself to the regular, monotonous ticking of a hall clock. He was anxious to see what she would do next, how she would develop her excitement; she was a novel phenomenon in his eyes: therefore he remained standing in the door.
But as he stood there in chilly expectancy, his haggard face casting off expressions of scorn and surprise, he suddenly sensed a feeling of weary disgust at himself. It was the disgust of a man whose wishes had always been fulfilled, whose lusts had been satisfied; of a man who has never known other men except as greedy and practical supplicants; of a man who has always been the lord of his friends, the tyrant of his servants, and the centre of all social gatherings; of a man before whom all others yielded, to whom all others bowed; of a man who had never renounced anything but the feeling of renunciation.
“I am not unaware,” he began slowly, just as if he were making a campaign speech to his electors, “I am not unaware that our marriage has not been the source of wholesome blessings. To be convinced of this, your declamation was unnecessary. We married because the circumstances were favourable. We had cause to regret the decision. Is it worth while to investigate the cause now? I am quite devoid of sentimental needs. This is true of me to such an extent that any display of sympathy or exuberance or lack of harshness in other people fills me with mortal antipathy. Unfortunately, my political career obliged me to assume a favourable attitude toward this general tendency of the masses. I played the hypocrite with complete consciousness of what I was doing, and made so much the greater effort to conceal all feeling in my private life.”