PAGE 3
A Misunderstanding
by
* * * * *
A MISUNDERSTANDING — THE HUSBAND’S VERSION.
I had thought of everything, taken all my precautions. I would not have a Parisian, because Parisian women alarm me. I would not have a rich wife because she might be too exacting and extravagant. I also dreaded family ties, that terrible network of homely affections, which monopolizes, imprisons, dwarfs and stifles. My wife was the realization of my fondest dreams. I said to myself: “She will owe me everything.”
What pleasure to educate this simple mind to the contemplation of beauty, to initiate this pure soul to my enthusiasms and hopes, to give life, in short, to this statue! The fact is she had the air of a statue, with her great serious calm eyes, her regular Greek profile, her features, which although rather too marked and severe, were softened by the rose-tinted bloom of youth and the shadow of the waving hair. Added to all this was a faint provincial accent that was my especial joy, an accent to which with closed eyes, I listened as a recollection of happy childhood, the echo of a tranquil life in some far away, utterly unknown nook. And to think that now, this accent has become unbearable to me! But in those days, I had faith. I loved, I was happy, and disposed to be still more so. Full of ardour for my work, I had as soon as I was married begun a new poem, and in the evening I read to her the verses of the day. I wished to make her enter completely into my existence. The first time or two, she said to me: “Very pretty,” and I was grateful to her for this childish approbation, hoping that in time she would comprehend better what was the very breath of my life.
Poor creature! How I must have bored her! After having read her my verses, I explained them to her, seeking in her beautiful astonished eyes the hoped-for gleam of light, ever fancying I should surprise it.
I obliged her to give me her opinion and I passed over all that was foolish to retain only what a chance inspiration might contain of good. I so longed to make of her my true help mate, the real artist’s wife! But no! She could not understand. In vain did I read to her the great poets, choosing the strongest, the tenderest,–the golden rhymes of the love poems fell upon her ear as coldly and tediously as a hailstorm. Once I remember, we were reading la Nuit d’Octobre; she interrupted me, to ask for something more serious! I tried then to explain to her that there is nothing in the world more serious than poetry, which is the very essence of life, floating above it like a glory of light, in the % vibrations of which words and thoughts are elevated and transfigured. Oh! what a disdainful smile passed over her pretty mouth and what condescension in her glance! As though a child or a madman had spoken to her.
What have I not thus wasted of strength and useless eloquence! Nothing was of any use. I stumbled perpetually against what she called good sense, reason, that eternal excuse of dried up hearts and narrow minds. And it was not only poetry that bored her. Before our marriage, I had believed her to be a musician. She seemed to understand the pieces she played, aided by the underlinings of her teacher. Scarcely was she married when she closed her piano, and gave up her music.
Can there be anything more melancholy than this abandonment by the young wife of all that had pleased in the young girl? The reply given, the part ended, the actress quits her costume. It was all done with a view to marriage; a surface of petty accomplishments, of pretty smiles, and fleeting elegance. With her the change was instantaneous. At first I hoped that the taste I could not give her, an artistic intelligence and love of the beautiful, would come to her in spite of herself, through the medium of this wonderful Paris, with its unconscious refining influence on eyes and mind. But what can be done with a woman who does not know how to open a book, to look at a picture, who is always bored and refuses to see anything? I soon understood that I must resign myself to have by my side nothing but a housewife, active and economical, indeed very economical. According to Proudhon, a woman, nothing more. I could have shaped my course accordingly; so many artists are in the same plight! But this modest role was not enough for her.