Wanda, Vol. 2 (of 3)

by Ouida

Once only he spoke of his own aims. Then he wrote:

'You bade me do good at Romaris. Candidly, I see no way to do it except in saving a crew off a wreck, which is not an occasion that presents itself every week. I cannot benefit these people materially, since I am poor; I cannot benefit them morally, because I have not their faith in the things unseen, and I have not their morality in the things tangible. They are God-fearing, infinitely patient, faithful in their daily lives, and they reproach no one for their hard lot, cast on an iron shore and forced to win their scanty bread at risk of their lives. They do not murmur either at duty or mankind. What should I say to them? I, whose whole life is one restless impatience, one petulant mutiny against circumstance? If I talk with them I only take them what the world always takes into solitude—discontent. It would be a cruel gift, yet my hand is incapable of holding out any other. It is a homely saying that no blood comes out of a stone; so, out of a life saturated with the ironies, the contempt, the disbelief, the frivolous philosophies, the hopeless negations of what we call society, there can be drawn no water of hope and charity, for the well-head—belief—is dried up at its source. Some pretend, indeed, to find in humanity what they deny to exist as deity, but I should be incapable of the illogical exchange. It is to deny that the seed sprang from a root; it is to replace a grand and illimitable theism by a finite and vainglorious bathos. Of all the creeds that have debased mankind, the new creed that would centre itself in man seems to me the poorest and the most baseless of all. If humanity be but a vibrion, a conglomeration of gases, a mere mould holding chemicals, a mere bundle of phosphorus and carbon? how can it contain the elements of worship; what matter when or how each bubble of it bursts? This is the weakness of all materialism when it attempts to ally itself with duty. It becomes ridiculous. The carpe diem of the classic sensualists, the morality of the "Satyricon" or the "Decamerone," are its only natural concomitants and outcome; but as yet it is not honest enough to say this. It affects the soothsayer's long robe, the sacerdotal frown, and is a hypocrite.'

In answer she wrote back to him:

'I do not urge you to have my faith: what is the use? Goethe was right. It is a question between a man and his own heart. No one should venture to intrude there. But taking life even as you do, it is surely a casket of mysteries. May we not trust that at the bottom of it, as at the bottom of Pandora's, there may be hope? I wish again to think with Goethe that immortality is not an inheritance, but a greatness to be achieved like any other greatness, by courage, self-denial, and purity of purpose—a reward allotted to the just. This is fanciful, may be, but it is not illogical. And without being either a Christian or a Materialist, without beholding either majesty or divinity in humanity, surely the best emotion that our natures know—pity—must be large enough to draw us to console where we can, and sustain where we can, in view of the endless suffering, the continual injustice, the appalling contrasts, with which the world is full. Whether man be the vibrion or the heir to immortality, the bundle of carbon or the care of angels, one fact is indisputable: he suffers agonies, mental and physical, that are wholly out of proportion to the brevity of his life, while he is too often weighted from infancy with hereditary maladies, both of body and of character. This is reason enough, I think, for us all to help each other, even though we feel, as you feel, that we are as lost children wandering in a great darkness, with no thread or clue to guide us to the end.'

When Sabran read this answer, he mused to himself:

'Pity! how far would her pity reach? How great offences would it cover? She has compassion for the evil-doers, but it is easy, since the evil does not touch her. She sits on the high white throne of her honour and purity, and surveys the world with beautiful but serene compassion. If the mud of its miry labyrinths reached and soiled her, would her theories prevail? They are noble, but they are the theories of one who sits in safety behind a gate of ivory and jasper, whilst outside, far below, the bitter tide of the human sea surges and moans too far off, too low down, for its sound to reach within. Tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner. But since she would never understand, how could she ever pardon? There are things that the nature must understand rather than the mind; and her nature is as high, as calm, as pure as the snows of her high hills.'

And then the impulse came over him for a passing moment to tell her what he had never told any living creature; to make confession to her and abide her judgment, even though he should never see her face again. But the impulse shrank and died away before the remembrance of her clear, proud eyes. He could not humiliate himself before her. He would have risked her anger; he could not brave her disdain. Moreover, straight and open ways were hot natural to him, though he was physically brave to folly. There was a subtlety and a reticence in him which were the enemies of candour.

To her he was more frank than to any other because her influence was great on him, and a strong reverence was awakened in him that was touched by a timid fear quite alien to a character naturally contemptuously cynical and essentially proud. But even to her he could not bring himself to be entirely truthful in revelation of his past. Truthfulness is in much a habit, and he had never acquired its habit. When he was most sincere there was always some reserve lying behind it. This was perhaps one of the causes of the attraction he exercised on all women. All women are allured by the shadows and the suggestions of what is but imperfectly revealed. Even on the clear, strong nature of Wanda von Szalras it had its unconscious and intangible charm. She herself was like daylight, but the subtle vague charm of the shadows had their seduction for her; Night holds dreams and passions that fade and flee before the lucid noon, and who, at noonday wishes not for night?

For himself, the letters he received from her seemed the only things that bound him to life at all.

The betrayal of him by a base and mercenary woman had hurt him more than it was worthy to do; it had stung his pride and saddened him in this period of adversity with a sense of degradation. He had been sold by a courtezan; it seemed to him to make him ridiculous as Samson was ridiculous, and he had no gates of Gaza to pull down upon himself and her. He could only be idle, and stare at an unoccupied and valueless future. The summer went on, and he remained at Romaris. An old servant had sent him word that all his possessions were safe in Paris, and his apartments unharmed; but he felt no inclination to go there: he felt no sympathy with Communists or Versaillists, with Gambetta or Gallifet. He stayed on at the old storm-beaten sea-washed tower, counting his days chiefly by the coming to him of any line from the castle by the lake.