· · · · ·
I am ready now, I think. There is nothing more to say. I offer no excuses for myself. I am as I was made,—a proud and rebellious woman, self-willed and sensual, seeing no fault in free love, and no crime in conjugal infidelity,—and if I am vicious, I can honestly declare that my vices have been encouraged and fostered in me by most of the literary teachers of my time. I married, as most women of my set marry, merely for money,—I loved, as most women of my set love, for mere bodily attraction,—I die, as most women of my set will die, either naturally or self-slain, in utter atheism, rejoicing that there is no God and no Hereafter!
· · · · ·
I had the poison in my hand a moment ago, ready to take, when I suddenly felt someone approaching me stealthily from behind, and glancing up quickly at the mirror I saw ... my mother! Her face, hideous and ghastly as it had been in her last illness, was reflected in the glass, peering over my shoulder! I sprang up and confronted her,——she was gone! And now I am shivering with cold, and I feel a chill dampness on my forehead,—mechanically I have soaked a handkerchief with perfume from one of the silver bottles on the dressing table, and have passed it across my temples to help me recover from this sick swooning sensation. To recover!—how foolish of me, seeing I am about to die. I do not believe in ghosts,—yet I could have sworn my mother was actually present just now,—of course it was an optical delusion of my own feverish brain. The strong scent on my handkerchief reminds me of Paris—I can see the shop where I bought this particular perfume, and the well-dressed [p 419] doll of a man who served me, with his little waxed moustache, and his indefinable French manner of conveying a speechless personal compliment while making out a bill.... Laughing at this recollection, I see my face radiate in the glass,—my eyes flash into vivid lustre, and the dimples near my lips come and go, giving my expression an enchanting sweetness. Yet in a few hours this loveliness will be destroyed,—and in a few days, the worms will twine where the smile is now!
· · · · ·
An idea has come upon me that perhaps I ought to say a prayer. It would be hypocritical,—but conventional. To die fashionably, one ought to concede a few words to the church. And yet ... to kneel down with clasped hands and tell an inactive, unsympathetic, selfish, paid community called the church, that I am going to kill myself for the sake of love and love’s despair, and that therefore I humbly implore its forgiveness for the act seems absurd,—as absurd as to tell the same thing to a non-existent Deity. I suppose the scientists do not think what a strange predicament their advanced theories put the human mind in at the hour of death. They forget that on the brink of the grave, thoughts come that will not be gainsaid, and that cannot be appeased by a learned thesis.... However I will not pray,—it would seem to myself cowardly that I who have never said my prayers since I was a child, should run over them now in a foolish babbling attempt to satisfy the powers invisible,—I could not, out of sheer association, appeal to Mr Swinburne’s ‘crucified carrion’! Besides I do not believe in the powers invisible at all,—I feel that once outside this life, ‘the rest’ as Hamlet said ‘is silence.’
· · · · ·
I have been staring dreamily and in a sort of stupefaction at the little poison-flask in my hand. It is quite empty now. I have swallowed every drop of the liquid it contained,—I took it quickly and determinately as one takes nauseous medicine, without allowing myself another moment of time for thought [p 420] or hesitation. It tasted acrid and burning on my tongue,—but at present I am not conscious of any strange or painful result. I shall watch my face in the mirror and trace the oncoming of death,—this will be at any rate a new sensation not without interest!
· · · · ·
My mother is here,—here with me in this room! She is moving about restlessly, making wild gestures with her hands and trying to speak. She looks as she did when she was dying,—only more alive, more sentient. I have followed her up and down, but am unable to touch her,—she eludes my grasp. I have called her ‘Mother! Mother!’ but no sound issues from her white lips. Her face is so appalling that I was seized with a convulsion of terror a moment ago and fell on my knees before her imploring her to leave me,—and then she paused in her gliding to and fro and—smiled! What a hideous smile it was! I think I lost consciousness, ... for I found myself lying on the ground. A sharp and terrible pain running through me made me spring to my feet, ... and I bit my lips till they bled, lest I should scream aloud with the agony I suffered and so alarm the house. When the paroxysm passed I saw my mother standing quite near to me, dumbly watching me with a strange expression of wonder and remorse. I tottered past her and back to this chair where I now sit,——I am calmer now, and I am able to realize that she is only the phantom of my own brain—that I fancy she is here while knowing she is dead.