X.
The storm had passed away; but it left traces of disorder behind, such as a tempest leaves in a garden over which it has recently swept. The collision had set us both thinking. We felt as if a mist had suddenly melted down, and enabled us, for the first time, to see clearly before us. We felt this differently, but we were equally conscious of the change.
"I am the wife of another!"
The words still throbbed in my brain. I could not escape from the images they conjured up. I could not rid myself of the doubts and distrusts, shapeless, but oppressive, thus forced upon me. I could not recall a single incident out of which, until these words were uttered, I could have extracted the remotest suspicion of her situation. To me, and to every person around her, Astræa had always appeared a free agent. She bore no man's name. She acted with perfect independence, so far as outward action was concerned; and the only restraint that ever seemed to hang upon her was some dark memory, or heavy sorrow, that clouded her spirit. Here was the mystery solved. She was a bond-woman, and had hidden her fetters from the world. In our English society, where usages are strict, and shadows upon a woman's reputation, even where there is not a solitary stain, blot it out forever, this was strange and painful. It looked like a deception, and, in the estimate of all others, it was a deception. This was the way in which it first presented itself to me. I had not emancipated myself from the influence of opinion, or habit, or prejudice, or whatever that feeling may be called which instinctively refers such questions to the social standard. The recoil was sudden and violent. Yet, nevertheless, I felt rebuked by the superiority of Astræa in the strength of purpose and moral courage she displayed under circumstances which would have overwhelmed most other women. Her steadfastness had a kind of grandeur in it, that seemed to look down upon my misgivings as failings or weaknesses of character. And she sat silently in this pomp of a clear and unfaltering resolution, while I, fretted and chafed, exhibited too plainly my double sense alike of the injury she had inflicted on me, and of the ascendency which, even in the hour of injury, she exercised over me. It was the stronger mind, made stronger by the force of love, overawing the weaker, made weaker by the prostration of the affections.
And she, too, had something to reflect upon in this moment of mutual revolt.
She loved me passionately. She loved me with a devotion capable of confronting all risks and perils. The profound unselfishness and truthfulness of her love made her serene at heart, and inspired her with a calmness which enabled her to endure the worst without flinching. There was not a single doubt of herself in her own mind. Her faith gave her the fortitude needful for the martyr. When a woman trusts every thing to this faith, and feels her reliance on it sufficient for the last sacrifice, she is prepared for an issue which no man contemplates, and which no man is able to encounter with an equal degree of courage or confidence in his own constancy. With her it is otherwise. By one step, the ground is closed up behind her forever; no remorse can help her, no suffering can make atonement, or propitiate reconciliation; she can not retract, she can not retreat, she can not return! No man is ever placed in this extremity, though his sin be of a ten-fold deeper dye. Such is the moral justice of society. He has always a space to fall back upon—he has always room to retrieve, to recover, to reinstate himself. But she is lost! The foreknowledge of her doom, which shuts out hope, makes her strong in endurance; the magnitude of her sacrifice enhances and deepens the idolatry from which it proceeded; she clings to it, and lives in it evermore, as the air which she must breathe, or die. But he? He has ever the backward hope, the consciousness of the power of retracing his steps. The world is there behind him, as he left it, its eager tumult still floating into his ears from afar off, its reckless gayeties, its panting ambition, its occupations, and its pleasures; and he knows he can re-enter it when he lists. He, then, if he consent to commit the great treason against a confiding devotion, can afford to be bold; that boldness which has always an escape and safeguard in reserve! But it is this consideration which makes him irresolute and infirm—it is this which dashes his resolves with hesitation, and makes him temporize and play fast and loose in his thoughts, while his lips overflow with the fervid declamation of passion. He may believe himself to be sincere; but no man understands himself who believes that he has renounced the world. The world has arranged it otherwise for him.
The whole conditions of her position were clear to Astræa. She had not now considered them for the first time; but the mistrust, not of my love for her, but of my character, was now first awakened; and if she trembled for the consequences, it was not for her own sake, but for mine. Men can not comprehend this abnegation of self in women, and, not being able to comprehend it, they do not believe in it. It requires an elevation and generosity rare in the crisis of temptation, and, perhaps, also, an entire change of surrounding circumstances and responsibilities, to enable them to estimate it justly; the power of bestowing happiness through a life-long sacrifice, instead of the privilege of receiving it at a trifling risk.
When we had become a little more at our ease, and I had endeavored by a variety of commonplaces to revive her faith in me, Astræa, with the most perfect frankness, entered upon her history. I will not break up the narrative by the occasional interruptions to which it was subjected by my curiosity and impatience, but preserve it as nearly entire as I can.
"There is a period," said Astræa, "in all our lives when we pass through delusions which an enlarged experience dispels. We too often begin by making deities, and end by total skepticism. I suppose, like every body else, I had my season of self-deception, although it has not made me an absolute infidel."
And as she said this, she looked at me with a smile so full of sweetness, that I yielded myself up implicitly to the enchantment.