WHEN Elias professed to recognize that, no matter how detestable his marriage might now have become to him, he was bound in all honor and decency to do nothing that could make his wife unhappy, he certainly, so far as he was conscious of his own intentions, meant what he said. Of his free will, he had married a perfectly innocent woman. He must not allow the burden of his guilt to bear in the slightest degree upon her shoulders. He must abide exactly by the letter, and, to the best of his ability, by the spirit, of his marriage vows. He purposed to do so; and, so far as he had fathomed it, his purpose was honest and earnest. Yet, at the same time, inevitably, his life at home galled and irked him more than a little. His daily association with Tillie, with Mrs. Morgenthau, and with the rabbi, was both irritating and enervating. He had constantly, as he put it, to wear a mask; to sham, to play a part, to act a lie. He had to counterfeit emotions and interests which he was very remote from feeling, and to conceal with utmost, unflagging vigilance those that actually dominated his heart. He had to pretend to be cheerful and sympathetic. He had to keep the one vital reality of his existence closely locked down, a secret prisoner in his breast. Shamming, through practiced in a laudable cause, is, as those who have tried it can testify, a sufficiently sorry and thankless business. Elias sickened of it. The never-relaxing guard that he was obliged to maintain over himself, on the perpetual qui-vive lest by some momentary inadvertence he should betray himself, wearied and discouraged him. He became impatient, restive. In certain moods, he would reflect: “It is a part of my punishment. I have brought it upon myself. I deserve it. I must submit to it unrebelliously, in silence.” But Elias was not by temperament a Spartan; and more frequently, longing ardently for respite, he would cry: “If only for a little while I could escape! If only I could go away, and, in solitude, for a little while, give the rein to my own true self—live my own true life, without this eternal necessity of suppression and deceit!” The actor wanted to withdraw for a moment out of view, behind the scenes, there, for a moment, to drop his stage-smile and stage-manner. Not unnaturally, it may be conceded. But the question was one of method. How? Consistently with his resolution not to make his wife unhappy, how could it be done? Gradually a plan, simple of conception, and easy of execution, got shaped in Elias’s mind. The plan itself, to be sure, involved a certain amount of falsehood; but falsehood which, Elias concluded, was innocuous, and, under the circumstances, justifiable.
On Monday, February 16, 1885, at the breakfast table, he made the following announcement to the persons there assembled: “To-morrow I am going out of town. I am going down into the country on Long Island, to do a little winter landscape painting. I shall be gone perhaps a week, perhaps a fortnight.”
No opposition was offered. Such questions as were asked, he had anticipated, and so answered with consummate glibness. Next morning a carriage drew up before the door. Elias, with his trunk and his traps, got into it, and was driven off. As the carriage turned the corner, he could see Tillie lingering on the stoop, looking after him. His conscience smote him gently for an instant; and he renewed his vow never to do any thing that could bring sorrow upon his wife. “Poor, little, light-hearted thing,” he soliloquized. “It is easy to satisfy her—‘pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw.’” And then he dismissed her from his mind. It is probable that, so long as he lived, he never once thought of her again.
“I don’t know why it is,” the light-hearted and easily satisfied Tillie, as she re-entered the house, confessed to her mother, “but I feel just as blue as if he had gone away forever, instead of only for a fortnight. I feel just perfectly wretched. I’ve been feeling bad enough for ever and ever so long; but this is just the last straw. I don’t believe he cares for me the least bit in the world.” And she buried her face in her mother’s bosom, and had a good, long cry.
Elias’s carriage drove neither to a railway-station, nor to a steamboat-pier. It drove to a lofty, red-brick apartment-house (for bachelors), in West Forty-second Street, “The Reginald,” where Elias had hired a furnished suite of rooms by the month. The falsehood involved by his plan had consisted in saying that he was going to the country. He had no idea of quitting the city. Just so long as Christine Redwood remained in New York, New York would be the only habitable spot on earth to Elias Bacharach.
The clerk of the apartment-house conducted Elias to his quarters, and left him there.
Elias locked his door behind the clerk. Then, suddenly, he flung himself full length upon the floor, and gave vent to a great sigh of relief. At last he was alone, all alone, and free. At last he had got clear of the disguise, which, like a strait-waistcoat, he had been compelled to wear for upwards of a year. I don’t know how long he continued to lie there upon the floor! I don’t know how many times he sobbed out her name: “Christine! Christine! Christine!”
Finally, however, he rose to his feet, brushed off and smoothed down his clothing, and descended to the office of the establishment, where he had some business to transact with the proprietor. Afterward, he meant to go for a walk, and feast his eyes for a while upon the house in which she dwelt. He knew this house very well. It was in Forty-eighth Street, between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. Many and many a time, during the past few months, he had gone there, after nightfall, and watched the lights glow in the windows, and wondered which of the lights was hers. By day, he never approached nearer than the nearest corner. He did not wish to be seen by her. He conjectured that the sight of him might distress her. Now, he meant, after finishing his business with the proprietor, to go and stand on that corner for awhile, and enjoy the luxury of staring at the chocolate-colored fa?ade of her dwelling-house.
He found the proprietor engaged in conversation with a gentleman. He took a position, therefore, at a respectful distance, and waited till their colloquy should end. He paid no heed to the gentleman’s appearance; but afterward he recalled him vaguely as tall, fair-complexioned, rather athletic-looking, and presumably in the neighborhood of thirty years of age. Pretty soon the gentleman put on his hat, and left the room.
“Did you notice that party I was talking with?” the proprietor inquired of Elias.
“Not especially,” Elias replied. “Why?”
“Handsome chap, and one of the whitest in this town. Civil Engineer, of the name of Hosmer—R. E. Hosmer. Got an office down in the Astor House. He’s lived here with me going on three years. But this is his last day. To-morrow he gets married.”
“Ah?” returned Elias, with a perfunctory affectation of interest.
“Yes, sir, gets married, and sets up house-keeping. So I lose him; and I’m mighty sorry to, I can tell you. He’s a gentleman, from the word go. But he’s caught a stunning pretty girl for a wife, now, and don’t you forget it. He had her here one night, along with some friends, to dinner; and he took me up, and introduced me to her. She’s what I call a daisy, straight out. Well, sir, tomorrow morning they’re going to be married; and he said he’d have invited me to the wedding, only it’s strictly private. No admittance except on business, you understand. No guests; nothing. Well, that’s all right, I suppose, if people like it that way. No law against it, any how. But you see, I wanted to send her some sort of a little present, being so friendly with him, you understand; and so I thought awhile, and finally I got this.” (The proprietor went to his safe, and, coming back in a minute, exhibited a necklace of amber beads.) “I got this. Tidy, ain’t it? But do you know, I’ll be hanged if I hadn’t forgotten to ask him for her address, until just this instant. There’s time yet, however; and I’ll send it up by one of the boys right away. Let’s see. Ah, yes; here it is. He wrote it out on this envelope.”
Elias took the envelope which his communicative landlord offered him, and glanced indifferently at it. In large, clear letters, was written:
“Miss Christine Redwood,
“No.— West 48th Street,
“City.”
Elias did not start, nor exclaim, nor indeed make any sign by which an observer could have guessed that what he had just read had been of any special import to him. He turned perhaps a little pale. Perhaps his lips twitched a little. Perhaps his attitude assumed a certain rigidity. But it was with an air of perfect composure that he said to the proprietor, “Oh, by the way, I forgot something. I must go back to my room The matter I wanted to speak to you about—I’ll be down again about it, later.” With an air of perfect composure; for, at this moment, like a man who has been shot, Elias was conscious of very little, save a sudden daze and bewilderment. He knew in a dull way that something serious had happened to him. There had been, all at once, a shock, a thrill that pierced and transfixed him; and then had come a strange stunned feeling; and now—now, he must get away, by himself, back in his own room, at once.
He entered the elevator, and was carried upstairs.
Automatically, he heard the elevator-man say: “Fine day, sir.”
Automatically, he responded, “Yes.”
“But cold. Coldest of the season, I guess. Below zero, sir.”
“Indeed.”
“Well, here you are, sir. Sixth.”
“Thanks.”
Automatically, he stepped out of the elevator, and found his way through the corridor to his door. Automatically, he unlocked the door, passed it, locked it behind him. But then, of a sudden, his strength deserted him, his sensations rushed upon him, and overpowered him. He dropped upon the first chair he came to, and sat there, all huddled up, and staring blindly, like a drunken man. Indeed, it was not unlike a drunken man that he felt. He felt deathly sick. He felt an oppression upon his lungs, and had to labor hard for his breath. His head sagged forward heavily upon his chest; his brain went spinning furiously round and round. His ears rang. A blackish, half-opaque mist hung before his eyes, in which the objects about him swam dimly, bewilderingly, to and fro. The house seemed to be rocking on its foundations. In his breast—something—a lump, big and hot, like a coal of fire—was struggling frantically, in spasmodic leaps, as if to break away, and get outside. At one instant he thought it would choke him; it had sprung up into his throat. Again, he thought it would rend his very bone and flesh asunder, with such force it dashed itself against the walls that shut it in. Then, for another instant, it fell back, and was quiet; but then he thought it would burn him up, with its intense, angry heat. Liquid fire went circling through his veins, scalding them, and causing the uttermost parts of his body to throb and tingle.
So, for it may have been a half hour, he sat there upon that chair, limp, motionless, like one stricken impotent and senseless by too much wine. In the end, however, all at once, as if stung, he sprang up, and began striding wildly, with unsteady gait, back and forth across his floor. He moaned aloud. Sometimes he would wring his hands together. Sometimes he would press them to his temples. By and by he began to talk to himself. His voice was husky, his articulation indistinct. His words came in spurts. A spectator would certainly have put him down for drunk.
“She is going to be married.... married.... do you understand? Going to become the wife of another man. Another man is going to possess her.... do you understand? That man.... you saw him down stairs.... he is going to possess her. She.... Christine.... oh, God help me!.... Perhaps he has seen her, been in her presence, heard her voice, looked into her eyes, touched her hand, kiss.... yes, very likely.... kissed her.... this very day. Perhaps he is with her at this instant.... now.... he, with her.... do you understand? While you.... I.... I.... Oh, have mercy on me. Strike me dead.... And to-morrow morning she is going to marry him, to-morrow morning.... going to be married.... Well, well, it’s all right It’s none of my business. Yes, it’s all right. She can do as she pleases. I can’t help it. It’s not my affair.... Only.... only, I want to know.... I want to know, why? Why is she going to marry him? Only tell me that: why does she want to marry him? Not for love. No! She can’t love him. It would be impossible that she should love him. Don’t tell me she loves him. No, no! Why, I say, look—look at how she loved me—how passionately, how entirely—with what complete, absolute surrender of herself! Why, after a woman has loved one man that way, I tell you, it is impossible, it is not in nature, for her ever to love another—really love another.... No!.... I don’t care what her feeling toward me may be.... hatred.... indifference.... I don’t care what.... I know she does not.... I know she never can.... love him.... love any body else. I know it. It would be against nature—impossible.... Oh, it’s laughable. The idea! that she should ever feel toward any one as she felt toward me! Such perfect confidence.... such perfect giving of herself!.... Christine! Oh, do you remember, Christine? Do you remember how you loved me? How your eyes burned with love, and your fingers clung with love, and your bosom rose and fell with love, and your voice thrilled with love? And all our unutterable intimate joy? And how you said it was like anguish, it was so keen? And.... and.... Do you remember! And now, do you mean to say that you can ever be like that with another man—not me—with him—with any body? Like that? Loving like that? Oh, no, no! Monstrous! Impossible. No, no, you don’t love him like that. Nobody could love twice like that. You never can love any one like that—any one but me. Me! I am the only man who has ever tasted that sweetness—who ever shall taste it. He—oh, the poor fool and beggar! He may be married to you a thousand years. He will never taste that—which I have tasted—never get even the perfume of it. Never—never!.... And yet.... and yet, she is going to marry him. Oh, Christine, tell me—for mercy&............