"And, when I look about me here, will not all these dumb creatures of mine continue to be my companions through life? I sometimes seem to myself like a father who has a number of daughters, all of them well brought up and each dear to his heart; and yet, loath as he is to lose any one of them out of his sight, it seems harder and harder to him, as the years go by, that no one of them finds a husband, and they all remain under his roof unprovided for. However, that is fate, and one learns to accept whatsoever the irresponsible powers bestow upon us. But that which comes from mortals--"
He suddenly sprang up, ran his hand through his hair, and stepped so close to his sweetheart, that Julie, little as she feared him even in his anger, involuntarily retreated a step.
"Felix was right," he said, in a hollow voice. "There is only one way of escape. These chains or others--we can never be free except on the other side of the ocean. Julie, if you could only make up your mind, if you feel as terribly in earnest as I do for our happiness--"
"My friend," she interrupted him, "I know what you would say. But the more earnestly I long for your--our happiness--the more must I insist upon our striving to attain it in a perfectly prosaic and sober way. Your friend is a born adventurer, a circumnavigator--a world conqueror. Your world and mine is this studio. Can we take it with us in the ship? And do you think a finer sense of art is to be found among the Yankees or the red-skins than among our countrymen? No, my dearest Jansen, I think that with courage and good sense we shall be able to free ourselves even on this side of the water. You men are masters in despairing, we women in hoping. And, besides, the end of our year of probation is still far enough off."
"Hope!" he cried, gnashing his teeth. "If a tigress had me in her claws, you might, with far more show of reason, call out to me only to give up hope with life! But this woman! Do you know a more terrible enemy of human happiness than this lie--this cold, rouged, heartless, unnatural lie? If she only hated me as immeasurably as she pretends to love me, truly, I myself should think it too soon to despair. A mortal can become satiated even with hate; and malice, too, is something of which one can get tired. But what is to be hoped when it is all merely a game, and the innermost nature of one's enemy is the nature of a comedian? Every spark of conscience has been extinguished in this wretched woman since her girlhood; her life is to her nothing but a rôle; her love and hate have become merely a question of costumes--applause and money are her highest and holiest conceptions. And she fears for both, if she lets me go free. It is flattering to her--one success more--to be able to pose before herself and the world as an injured innocent, a robbed wife, a mother whose child has been taken from her--and for that reason she refuses all my entreaties and offers with indignation, for she knows well that I would rather give up any happiness in life than let her have the child. If you had read the letters I have wasted upon her in these last few weeks! Letters which, I can truly say, were written with my heart's blood--they would have made a tigress human; and this woman---read what she answers me! I have carried on this wretched correspondence behind your back, in the hope of taking upon myself all that was bitter and humiliating--for what words have I not stooped to use!--I have borne all the agony of these last weeks, in order that I might at last lay nothing but the happy results at your feet. Now read what sort of echo came to me from that stony heart, and then say whether a man need necessarily be a master in despairing, to give up all hope here!"
He went to the large closet, unlocked a drawer, and took out several dainty-looking letters, that diffused a sweet perfume through the room. Julie read one after the other, while he threw himself down on the sofa again and stared at the ceiling. The letters were written in a regular, delicate, clear hand, and in a style which might be taken as a model of diplomatic art. There were no traces of mere declamation, of complaining or accusing. The writer had resigned herself to accept an unhappy fate, for she felt herself too weak and not cold-hearted enough to take up the battle with him: a battle in which the man to whom she had given all stood opposed to her. This she could prevail upon herself to do, for it was only her own happiness that she was sacrificing. But she could never be brought to give up her claim to her child. The day might come when the longing for a mother's love might awaken in the poor child's heart. Then no one should have it in his power to say to her: "Your mother has no heart for you; she has given you over to strangers." Upon passages like this, which were repeated in each letter, especial care had been bestowed, reminding one, here and there, of the stage, and the last rhetorical flourish just before the curtain falls. The last sheet, which had been received only a few days before, concluded as follows:
"I know all, all that you would so carefully conceal from me. It is not only your wish to have done with the past once and forever, and to give me back my freedom--for, according to your idea of my character, it would cost me no effort whatsoever to live as if all were at an end between us, especially as I do not bear your name on the stage. No, I know what it is that not only makes you wish for a complete separation from me, but that makes every delay unbearable. You have fallen into the net of a dangerous beauty. If my old love for you were not stronger than my self-love, there would be nothing I should more earnestly wish for, or would more eagerly aid by all the means in my power, than your marriage with this girl. She would justify me, would raise me to honor again in your eyes, and would force from you the confession that you had cast away your only true friend in order to nurse a serpent in your bosom. But I am nobler than it is for my advantage to be: not, I admit, altogether for your sake. The hope of seeing you return to me is too tempting for me not to be willing to help you to have this experience. But to relinquish our child to this stranger--who is said to be as clever as she is beautiful, and as beautiful as she is heartless--to give my blessed angel, who hovers near me in my dreams, to this serpent--"
Julie had involuntarily read the last few lines aloud, as if she scorned to soften down any accusation that was directed against herself. Her disgust and indignation would not permit her to finish the sentence--the letter fell from her hand.
"My dear friend," she said, "let us read no further. I must confess you are quite right; this is hopeless. Kindness is thrown away upon such an unnatural character as you so rightly called it, and force--where is the force that we could use? But as for surrendering--hopelessly, and without striking a blow--no matter how much talent I might have for despairing, if I were opposed to this woman, I would either conquer or die!"
He sprang up and seized her hand. "Julie!" he cried, "you put new life into me. Never shall she enjoy such a triumph--rather let us flee to the ends of the earth beyond the reach of her hand--rather let us go to the Yankees and the red-skins, but with you at my heart and our child in our arms--"