Suddenly they came on a representation of the Parcæ, three dreary, terrible old women sitting huddled up in a cowering circle, weaving, shaping and cutting the thread of the destinies of men. Mrs. Elles stopped and pondered deeply. There was a thread, yes, and many destinies were interwoven with the one. No man or woman stood alone. She had given a promise that had not been accepted, that day, but still she had made it; she had promised to cut the thread of her own life, so as to leave that of Rivers free. It was all very well: she stood there ostensibly her own mistress in that room, beside Dr. André, but the thread of her fate was hopelessly entangled with the fates of two other persons, her husband and her lover. The divorce hung imminent over their heads, the machinery of which they had set in motion, and which now could not be averted.
She turned to Dr. André, and looked mysterious.
“Shall I tell you what had always been one of my nightmares—a suicide manqué! If a person wishes to commit suicide, he should arrange to do it neatly and completely. Instead of that, he contrives to make it a hideous and ridiculous fiasco, and generally goes on humbly living after all!”
“Because intending suicides have as a rule got themselves worked up to such a state of nerves before they think of killing themselves, that having decided on it they are not fit to conduct such a ticklish enterprise. They are so agitated, so upset, they are in such a hurry to get out of the world, when once they have screwed themselves up to the point of resolution, that lest that resolution waver, they rush it, and so muff the whole thing!”
“Yes, but what I mean is that if I were perfectly calm and not in the least agitated, I should still ‘muff’ it, as you say, through not knowing how to set about it—the mere technique of the business would escape me!”
“I shall have to publish a little manual, at your service, ‘Suicide Made Easy!’”
“You must not make fun of me. I am serious.”
“I deeply regret to hear it!” he said, still laughing.
“No, but don’t you know—to a nervous woman like me, it would be an immense consolation to know that I could, at a given moment, get out of it—I mean life—decently and in order.”
“If you must go, why stand upon the order of your going?”