The Garden of Survival | Page 5

sacrifice. And your instinct, more
piercing than my own, proved only too correct: that which I held for
love declared itself as pity only, the soft, affectionate pity of a weakish
man in whom the flesh cried loudly, the pity of a man who would be
untrue to himself rather than pain so sweet a girl by rejecting the one
great offering life placed within her gift. She persuaded me so
cunningly that I persuaded myself, yet was not aware I did so until
afterwards. I married her because in some manner I felt, but never
could explain, that she had need of me.
And, at the wedding, I remember two things vividly: the expression of
wondering resignation on your face, and upon hers--chiefly in the eyes
and in the odd lines about the mouth--the air of subtle triumph that she
wore: that she had captured me for her very own at last, and yet--for
there was this singular hint in her attitude and behaviour--that she had
taken me, because she had this curious deep need of me.
This sharply moving touch was graven into me, increasing the
tenderness of my pity, subsequently, a thousandfold. The necessity lay
in her very soul. She gave to me all she had to give, and in so doing she
tried to satisfy some hunger of her being that lay beyond my
comprehension or interpretation. For, note this--she gave herself into
my keeping, I remember, with a sigh.
It seems as of yesterday the actual moment when, urged by my
vehement desires, I made her consent to be my wife; I remember, too,
the doubt, the shame, the hesitation that made themselves felt in me

before the climax when her beauty overpowered me, sweeping
reflection utterly away. I can hear to-day the sigh, half of satisfaction,
yet half, it seemed, of pain, with which she sank into my arms at last, as
though her victory brought intense relief, yet was not wholly gamed in
the way that she had wanted. Her physical beauty, perhaps, was the last
weapon she had wished to use for my enslavement; she knew quite
surely that the appeal to what was highest in me had not succeeded. . .
The party in our mother's house that week in July included yourself;
there is no need for me to remind you of its various members, nor of
the strong attraction Marion, then a girl of twenty-five, exercised upon
the men belonging to it. Nor have you forgotten, I feel sure, the adroit
way in which she contrived so often to find herself alone with me, both
in the house and out of it, even to the point of sometimes placing me in
a quasi-false position. That she tempted me is, perhaps, an
overstatement, though that she availed herself of every legitimate use of
feminine magic to entrap me is certainly the truth. Opportunities of
marriage, it was notorious, had been frequently given to her, and she
had as frequently declined them; she was older than her years; to
inexperience she certainly had no claim: and from the very first it was
clear to me--if conceited, I cannot pretend that I was also blind--that
flirtation was not her object and that marriage was. Yet it was marriage
with a purpose that she desired, and that purpose had to do, I felt, with
sacrifice. She burned to give her very best, her all, and for my highest
welfare. It was in this sense, I got the impression strangely, that she had
need of me.
The battle seemed, at first, uneven, since, as a woman, she did not
positively attract me. I was first amused at her endeavours and her skill;
but respect for her as a redoubtable antagonist soon followed. This
respect, doubtless, was the first blood she drew from me, since it
gained my attention and fixed my mind upon her presence. From that
moment she entered my consciousness as a woman; when she was near
me I became more and more aware of her, and the room, the picnic, the
game of tennis that included her were entirely different from such
occasions when she was absent, I became self-conscious. It was
impossible to ignore her as formerly had been my happy case.

It was then I first knew how beautiful she was, and that her beauty
made a certain difference to my mood. The next step may seem a big
one, but, I believe, is very natural: her physical beauty gave me definite
pleasure. And the instant this change occurred she was aware of it. The
curious fact, however, is that, although aware of this gain of power, she
made no direct use of it at first. She did not draw this potent weapon for
my undoing; it was ever with her,