The Lonely Way-Intermezzo-Countess Mizzie Part 34

I'll be through very quickly. To-day I have nothing but a few business matters to dispose of--nothing but signing a few doc.u.ments. I'll be back in three-quarters of an hour. In the meantime the children will keep you company as they used to in the old days. ... Won't you, children?--So you're staying, are you not? Good-by for a little while then. (_He goes out_)

[_Long pause._

FELIX

Why didn't you go with him?

JULIAN

Your mother was without blame. If any there be, it falls on me alone.

I'll tell you all about it.

FELIX (_nods_)

JULIAN

It had been arranged that we were to go away together. Everything was ready. We meant to leave the place secretly because, quite naturally, your mother shrank from any kind of statement or explanation. Our intention was to write and explain after we had been gone a few days.

The hour of our start had already been settled. He ... who later became her husband, had just gone to Vienna for a couple of days in order to get certain doc.u.ments. The wedding was to take place in a week.

(_Pause_) Our plans were all made. We had agreed on everything. The carriage that was to pick us up a little ways off had already been hired. In the evening we bade each other good-night, fully convinced that we should meet next morning, never to part again.--It turned out differently.--You mustn't keep in mind that it was your mother. You must listen to me as if my story dealt with perfect strangers. ... Then you can understand everything.

FELIX

I am listening.

JULIAN

I had come to Kirchau in June, one beautiful Summer morning--with him.... You know about that, don't you? I meant to stay only a few days. But I stayed on and on. More than once I tried to get away while it was still time. But I stayed. (_Smiling_) And with fated inevitability we slipped into sin, happiness, doom, betrayal--and dreams. Yes, indeed, there was more of those than of anything else.

And after that last farewell, meant to be for a night only--as I got back to the little inn and started to make things ready for our journey--only then did I for the first time become really conscious of what had happened and was about to happen. Actually, it was almost as if I had just waked up. Only then, in the stillness of that night, as I was standing at the open window, did it grow clear to me that next morning an hour would come by which my whole future must be determined.

And then I began to feel ... as if faint s.h.i.+verings had been streaming down my body. Below me I could see the stretch of road along which I had just come. It ran on and on through the country, climbing the hills that cut off the view, and losing itself in the open, the limitless....

It led to thousands of unknown and invisible roads, all of which at that moment remained at my disposal. It seemed to me as if my future, radiant with glory and adventure, lay waiting for me behind those hills--but for me alone. Life was mine--but only this one life. And in order to seize it and enjoy it fully--in order to live it as it had been shaped for me by fate--I needed the carelessness and freedom I had enjoyed until then. And I marveled almost at my own readiness to give away the recklessness of my youth and the fullness of my existence....

And to what purpose?--For the sake of a pa.s.sion which, after all, despite its ardor and its transports, had begun like many others, and would be destined to end like all of them.

FELIX

Destined to end...? _Must_ come to an end?

JULIAN

Yes. Must. The moment I foresaw the end, I had in a measure reached it.

To wait for something that must come, means to go through it a thousand times--to go through it helplessly and needlessly and resentfully. This I felt acutely at that moment. And it frightened me. At the same time I felt clearly that I was about to act like a brute and a traitor toward a human being who had given herself to me in full confidence.--But everything seemed more desirable--not only for me, but for her also--than a slow, miserable, unworthy decline. And all my scruples were submerged in a monstrous longing to go on with my life as before, without duties or ties. There wasn't much time left for consideration.

And I was glad of it. I had made up my mind. I didn't wait for the morning. Before the stars had set, I was off.

FELIX

You ran away....

JULIAN

Call it anything you please.--Yes, it was a flight, just as good and just as bad, just as precipitate and just as cowardly as any other--with all the horrors of being pursued and all the joys of escaping. I am hiding nothing from you, Felix. You are still young, and it is even possible that you may understand it better than I can understand it myself to-day. Nothing pulled me back. No remorse stirred within me. The sense of being free filled me with intoxication.... At the end of the first day I was already far away--much farther than any number of milestones could indicate. On that first day her image began to fade away already--the image of her who had waked up to meet painful disillusionment, or worse maybe. The ring of her voice was pa.s.sing out of my memory.... She was becoming a shadow like others that had been left floating much farther behind me in the past.

FELIX

Oh, it isn't true! So quickly could she not be forgotten. So remorselessly could you not go out in the world. All this is meant as a sort of expiation. You make yourself appear what you are not.

JULIAN

I am not telling you these things to accuse or defend myself. I am simply telling you the truth. And you must hear it. It was your mother, and I am the man who deserted her. And there is something more I am compelled to tell you. On the very time that followed my flight I must look back as the brightest and richest of any I have ever experienced.

Never before or after have I reveled to such an extent in the splendid consciousness of my youth and my freedom from restraint. Never have I been so wholly master of my gifts and of my life.... Never have I been a happier man than I was at that very time.

FELIX (_calmly_)

And if she had killed herself?

JULIAN

I believe I should have thought myself worth it--in those days.

FELIX

And so you were, perhaps, at that time.--And she thought of doing it, I am sure. She wanted to put an end to the lies and the qualms, just as hundreds of thousands of girls have done before. But millions fail to do it, and they are the most sensible ones. And I am sure she also thought of telling the truth to him she took to husband. But, of course, the way through life is easier when you don't have to carry a burden of reproach or, what is worse, of forgiveness.

JULIAN

And if she had spoken....

FELIX

Oh, I understand why she didn't. It had been of no use to anybody. And so she kept silent: silent when she got back from the wedding--silent when her child was born--silent when, ten years later, the lover came to her husband's house again--silent to the very last.... Fates of that kind are to be found everywhere, and it isn't even necessary to be--depraved, in order to suffer them or invoke them.

JULIAN

And there are mighty few whom it behooves to judge--or to condemn.

FELIX

I don't presume to do so. And it doesn't even occur to me that I am now to behold deceivers and deceived where, a few hours ago, I could only see people who were dear to me and whose relations.h.i.+ps to each other were perfectly pure. And it is absolutely impossible for me to feel myself another man than I have deemed myself until to-day. There is no power in all this truth.... A vivid dream would be more compelling than this story out of bygone days, which you have just told me. Nothing has changed--nothing whatever. The thought of my mother is as sacred to me as ever. And the man in whose house I was born and raised, who surrounded my childhood and youth with care tenderness, and whom my mother--loved.... He means just as much to me now as he ever meant--and perhaps a little more.

JULIAN

And yet, Felix, however powerless this truth may seem to you--there is one thing you can take hold of in this moment of doubt: it was as my son your mother gave birth to you....

FELIX

At a time when you had run away from her.

JULIAN

And as my son she brought you up.