There was undisguised bitterness in his words; a bitterness which Marie, conscious of the unprecedence of her behavior, construed as an expression of his scorn for what she called her “unwomanliness”. Her excited mind only served to intensify the horrid picture which she had drawn of herself. To think that she had come this way to Paul, of all people! Even the awful atmosphere of her father’s death-chamber could not excuse her for doing so. She wished that she could hide herself away. She was ashamed of her body—her very existence.
But Paul was not thinking of these things. He was merely astounded at the change that the night had wrought in himself.
“I wish to hell Hanaré hadn’t died,” he exclaimed suddenly, and without any reason for it. “Life is nothing but a constant attempt to adjust ourselves to the tragedy of existence. Since we cannot tell to-day what will happen to-morrow, we never quite succeeded in our adjustments: and so, there’s always a tragedy. We go on and on—like that!”
He felt master of himself now. But Marie supposed that he was lecturing her. There was an element of brutality in it.
“If we were automatons,” Paul proceeded, as though the sound of his own voice helped to drive away the real tragedy behind—“if we were all automatons, who acted out one day the same as any other, incapable of making fools out of ourselves,—why then, life might be worth living. But some fool of a God—a fool God—gave us this power to make mistakes. Marie, for the past six years both our lives have been mistakes. And now just see what you have done—and what I have done.”
Marie stood facing him, and clenched her fists.
“Paul Duval, you are undoubtedly the most unfeeling man in the world—the most pitiless—the most un—unreasonable. I know I’m a little fool! Do you suppose I have no sensibilities? Do you sup—? Oh, heaven!” She fell back again into the armchair, weeping.
The situation between them had changed tremendously in one night, because his ideals had become incompatible with her ideals, his life had lost that simplicity and innocence which they had once shared together. Paul found that his love for her, just yesterday so vivid and passionate, had changed, and had converted itself into a red and golden derelict of the past, which he still loved, though in a different way. Like Dante, his love for a face and a living body had transformed itself into an intellectual remembrance—an ideal—a hope which, while it might later be fulfilled in some immortal existence, had lost, once and forever, its earthly potency. Just as the death of Beatrice had forced Dante to relinquish the earthly passion, so the death of Hanaré, which brought the confusing emotions of last night, had led Paul to reconceive Marie and transform her into a vanished reality, an ideal, rather than a living being. He had tasted, now, that side of life which does not permit of the more refined loves.
Indeed it was a strange position to be in: and the tragedy of it lay in the fact that he could never make it clear to Marie why he had done as he had, and why the relationship between them was now changed. Tremendous, this change!—almost infinite in character. Especially, she would never understand how it had come about so quickly. He sighed. “With questions like this,” he said, “of life and death—time has little, if anything, to do.”
He began to reflect that the course he had taken was an evil one. And although the forces which had led him along this course were still potent, nevertheless the sudden apparition of Marie into the midst of them recalled his old life with her, if nothing else. And this feeling, that he had better go back, repent, and, if possible, forget the slight digression of the night before, grew upon him, just as a glimmer of light, which increases in intensity, turns at last into a ball of fire. He even came to the conclusion that it was his duty to marry her. He felt that he had no right to add to her sorrow for Hanaré’s death, a still larger grief caused by his own selfishness.