The Knickerbocker Gallery/Anteros
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Donald Mac Leod
Anteros.
A LIFE WITH ONE PASSION.
By Donald Mac Leod.
Every body who knows Dr. T———, in a friendly way, knows that his darling study is Psychology; and this has always interested me exceedingly, as I suppose it interests every artist. Lately, in our conversations, we have been devoted, he as master and I as scholar, to the observation of characters formed by the development of a single passion, as avarice, ambition, love, etc. His close, analytical mind finds great pleasure in following and noting accurately the course of such a development, from its first exterior manifestation to its result; and he holds that when the soul is once fairly delivered up to the dominance of a single passion, the principle of life itself becomes involved, and that the end of the passion is only at the end of mortal existence.
His anecdotes, thoroughly illustrative of his theory, are many and of absorbing interest; and I only endeavor to repeat one here because the general reader is never likely to learn it from him. At the same time, I am convinced of my own incapacity to analyze like him. I will tell one story, however, that haunted me for a long time, and, as I am not a physician, but only a story-teller, I shall tell it in my own way.
There is a young, beautiful woman, sitting among pillows and cushions in an arm-chair, by an open window. The still atmosphere is heavy with the scent of tube-roses, jessamines, heliotropes, and other flowers of like powerful odor, which have always been her favorites. Filled as the air is with these rich fragrances, she adds to them that of pastiles, burning on the chimney-piece, and her hand-kerchief is wet with extracts of violets. Her skin is white, but not transparent; it reminds you most of cream-laid note paper. The eyes are lazy, full, and the color of the double English violets. The hair is blond, an ashy blond, and has scarcely a wave in it; it could not be made to curl, but lies in rich, heavy, almost damp bands, about the face. Her form, though delicate, is thoroughly developed; the flesh firm, the outlines as if chiseled, growing thin now, except the throat and bust, and the hands and feet, which are very small, but rounded and plump, with dimples at the joints. She wears a pale blue silk robe de chambre, opening in front to show an under-dress of white watered silk. On the table beside her is a bottle and glass of heavy, rich Portugal wine, pure juice, which leaves a spoonful of sediment in every glass.
Except to taste this, or to inhale the odors, as the light air throws them occasionally through the window, or to respire the violet from the handkerchief, she seldom raises her head from where it reclines, thrown back upon the cushions, in which position she looks passionately and dreamily at her husband's portrait, which hangs upon the wall before her.
The portrait exhibits a man of twenty-six or seven, somewhat sallow, thin, with heavy, wavy, chestnut hair, and large brown eyes, not without some fierceness in them. There is nothing remarkable about the face except the intense redness of the lips—the lady has that also—so red that you fancy the painter a bad chooser of colors; yet they say the likeness is perfect. These are all the accessories which need be mentioned. Let the lady tell her own story:
My father died before my birth; my mother perished in bringing me, her only child, into the world. They left me a large fortune, and my guardians were well-bred, very ordinary, every-day, well-to-do people.
The first thing I ever loved, except strong perfumes and flowers, was a bird, an English bulfinch, which seemed to be very fond of me, until one day, when I was about twelve or thirteen, it flew to a young girl who was visiting me, and refused to come back when I called it. When it did come, at last, I killed it in my hand.
I remember my nurse very well, and a pretty French maid who attended me afterward; but I do n't think I cared much about either.
I do n't think that I loved any thing much except the bird that I crushed in my hand; at least, until I got to be eighteen. I was, of course, as is the case generally in New-York, taken into society quite young—at sixteen, I think—and I saw a good deal of it. I was rich, and I may say it now, beautiful, so that I did not lack suitors who professed the profoundest devotion for me. Some of them were pleasant, one or two handsome and fascinating men, and I often wondered at the existence of my utter indifference for them all. By-and-by I won the reputation of a cold, unaffectionate girl, and those who were really worthy began to leave me to myself, and none remained but those who thought only of my fortune. Cold and unaffectionate! Ah! if they could have seen the ceaseless agonies of tears into which I burst in my own room; if they could have seen my arms trying to wind themselves round my own body, or felt the thrills and yearnings of the unknown passion that convulsed me with its power, that was consuming my heart!
There was a large party given on my eighteenth birth-day, and it took its usual course. I have forgotten all about it until, about the middle of it, I saw a young man standing in a corner looking at me. As I met his look an indescribable thrill passed through me, and I felt faint for a moment. My impulse was to rise and clasp him in my arms. He haunted me and frightened me, yet I felt a strange desire to get near him. When he came, at last, introduced by my guardian as Mr. Mark Winston, I had scarcely strength or self-possession to bow. He asked me to dance and I refused, I know not why; I never cared for that amusement, yet I had never refused any one before. Then he sat down and talked to me a little while, but the shrinking still remained, and I answered I know not how or what. But he dropped a glove beside me, and when he had gone, I picked it up, and put it into my bosom; and when I was alone, I knew that I loved him, and that that love was my life.
Mark Winston was a Carolinian, and had brought no letters to the North, except to my guardian, so that our house was almost his only visiting-place. There was a pleasant, lively girl, niece to my guardian, staying with us then, and our party commonly consisted of the old people, Mark, Mary Lee, and myself. The spring came on and passed away, and in the latter part of it, we went to a country-seat at New-Rochelle.
Every hour my passion grew stronger; every hour it destroyed some minor characteristic of my nature, and advanced toward its end, the absorption of all my nature into itself. Still I shunned him. inexplicably to myself; I craved to be near him, to hear him, to watch him, to touch him with my dress in passing; but when he came to me, a positive fear would take hold on me, and I would feel almost ill. I stole from him; stole his gloves, his handkerchief; I would have done any act of meanness; I have picked the pockets of his coat when it hung in the hall. Once, noticing that the ribbon of his watch was worn out, Mary Lee gave him another, which he put on; and in doing so, he broke the crystal of his watch, and carried it up to his room. But for this, I would have fainted, or else sprung upon her; but this gave me a gleam of light. When he returned to the drawing-room, I went up stairs, procured another ribbon, and went into his room. I took her ribbon and tore it to pieces with my hands and teeth, and carried it out and stamped it into the black soil of the garden; but that which he had worn I had already in my bosom, and I treasured that and the gloves and the handkerchief, and whatever else of him I had, and kissed them, and sat looking at them in my lap, and slept with them in my bosom through the long nights. Yet for all this I could get no nearer to him.
At last I thought that he began to pay his addresses to Mary Lee, and then I recognized that love had not eaten up all my nature, for hate and rage still existed. Oh! what weary, weary weeks I spent in watching them! How softly I crawled down stairs! How stealthily I stole behind them in their walks! How I watched them conversing in the drawing-room.
On Thursday, the seventh of June—I had bought an almanac, and I used to mark the days on which I saw him—on Thursday, the seventh of June, I saw him come up the avenue, and heard him enter the house. He did not mount the stairs, but passed into the drawing-room, and I knew that. Mary Lee was there alone. I went to my dressing-table, and swallowed from a flaçon a glass of Cologne-water. Then, when the shudder and tremor had passed over, I went gently down, and saw the door half open. The door was in the middle of the room; when partially open, you saw a huge mirror, which reflected every thing in the room: they sat behind it. Halfway down the stairs, I heard his voice, soft, low, pleading, tender: God! how long had this been going on! My satin slippers made no noise, and I reached the half-open door and saw them in the glass; he with her hand in his; I watched them there for a thousand centuries; and I heard him say, "Do, dear Mary; do promise for to-morrow;" and I heard her answer, in a timid, gentle voice, which seemed to me full of love, No, Mark, I dare not."
Again he plead to her, and then—my eyes upon the mirror—then he took her hand and kissed it. I saw him do it.
I struck the door open—my hand was black for two weeks—and went in to where he still held her hand, and stood before them, and struck my foot upon the ground.
Mary Lee ran out of the room.
"So," I said to Mark Winston, "you come here for that, do you?"
He looked at me amazedly.
"You even must be base and dishonorable, you even can not respect the sanctity of a friend's house; and you call yourself gentleman."
He grew white, a kind of ashy white; and his eyes grew three shades darker, and burnt like living coals with rage. I feared him not, and said:
"And to love a thing like Mary Lee!"
Then the fierceness passed instantly from his eyes; and a flood of unutterable passion flowed—I saw it flow—into them, and he said:
"I was begging her to intercede with you, Louise, I never loved any but you. But you are so cold, so unaffectionate, so incapable of loving, so ———"
I sank down upon the floor, and clasped his knees, and said, "Mark, I love you, and have loved you, and will love you to eternity."
I remember my sitting upon his knees, with his strong arms, like mighty cords, binding my bosom upon his. And then came that wild rain of kisses, of consuming, devouring kisses, on my hair and eyes and forehead, and quicker and faster on my lips and neck. I fainted in his arms, on his convulsed bosom and impassioned, throbbing heart. At least I suppose I fainted, for I remember nothing until I found myself upon a sofa, with Mark kneeling at my feet, holding my hands in his, and his tears raining hotly upon them, faster and hotter than his kisses.
We were married on the fifteenth of September, and went to our home immediately—a nice country-house on the north shore of Long-Island—that was our home.
I do n't remember that we ever read, or drew, or had any music, or any thing else of that kind. I remember the walks in the forest or on the shore, and the flowers that he was fond of, and the perfumes he liked best, and the love that both of us had for the heavy lamp-shades, ground simply and lined with rose-colored tissue paper.
I remember that I never before had taken particular care of my person, except what is natural to any gentlewoman, but that now I bathed twice every day, and studied every toilette, chiefly the morning and the night-dress, and used no perfume but tube-rose, heliotrope, and violet, which were his favorites, and lived as in a dream—a long, may-be a bad, wicked, cruel, passionate dream.
All that I know is, that I was separated from him, and the physicians said he was going to die; and when I asked to see him, they said, "No; any body but you." He grew worse and worse.
They had forbidden me to go near him. My presence alone, they said, was injurious to him. They would not answer for his life, if I were to insist on seeing him. So I kept away in my own chamber while people were stirring in the house; but, in the early morning, when all was still, I used to creep to the door of his room, and crouch down there and think of him.
By-and-by this became unendurable, and I began to question whether that cold-browed, scientific, quiet man had a right to keep a wife from her husband. I had heard so often, that, for a point of medical interest, any point new or curious in their science, they would not hesitate to destroy fifty lives to procure an elucidation, I determined at least to see. So I questioned Mark's nurse.
"Does he suffer much, nurse?"
"No, Ma'am; or, at least, he makes no complaint. Only just lies there, still and dreaming-like, and putting out his arms, and then folding them back round him again."
"Is he out of his mind at all?"
"God bless you! no. His eyes have no sparkle in them, and his voice is as little as a child's, only deeper, like the church-organ, you know, Ma'am, before they come to the loud part."
"But does he forget all his friends?"
"He never speaks about them, Ma'am, although the doctor is always a-mentioning them to him; but while they talk about them, he just lies there."
"About whom, then, does he talk?"
"O Ma'am, he hardly talks at all; only lies still, except his arms, and looks always like he was thinking of somewhat; and when he does speak, he never says but just only, 'Louise, Louise.'"
"Does he say 'Louise?' That is my name."
"Why, bless you, Ma'am, he never speaks nor thinks of any body but you. He calls always for you, and then, after he calls awhile, he seems to think as you have come, and he folds his arms in so—" here the nurse imitated the motion; "not folding them up as the gentlemen do, but kind of looking as if he were folding something else up into them; and then he keeps a-saying 'Louise, Louise,' in a little, low, soft voice, and by-and-by he falls asleep."
A new idea flashed upon me. Said I:
"Nurse, dear, they, the doctors, won't allow me to see him; are they cross with you? Let me see: how long have you been watching him?"
"Three nights now, Ma'am, on a stretch; but if I was ever so tired, Ma'am, I could n't let you go in."
"Oh! yes, I know that; but I want him well watched, and I am afraid that they don't take care of you."
"Oh! yes, Ma'am, I get plenty to eat, but, to tell you the truth, Ma'am, I have always been used to a little drop of wine, and I haven't had none,"
"Well, nurse, I will bring you some into the little dining-room, and will call you when he gets asleep. Now go in and watch him."
She went into Mark's room, and I went to the sideboard, where I found several decanters full. I chose a small one, in order that she might drink it all. But first, I took it up to my own room, and put some laudanum in it; and then I got some dry biscuit and anchovy sauce to increase her thirst, and took it into the little dining-room.
It was nearly eleven then, and I undressed myself, but did not go to bed. I thought, constantly of Mark, and I put on the pale-blue dressing-gown, in which he used to admire me, and I let the bands of my hair, which were very thick and heavy, fall down about my neck; and then I sat down before the clock, and thought about him and of the day when he first told me how he loved me, and of the day on which we were married.
When the clock struck one, I went down, peeped in, and saw the nurse moving about the chimney-piece. Then I went back to my room, sat down, and thought of Mark until two. Then I went down again, and, as I slightly opened Mark's door, I saw the nurse dozing in her arm-chair. I could not see Mark, for the door, half-opened, only showed the foot of his bed; but I heard him move and say "Louise;" and I shivered as I heard him. Meantime his movement or mine awakened the nurse, and she saw me.
I beckoned to her, and, after a glance at her charge, she came out. I saw that she was cold, for they allowed no fire in Mark's room; and I took her to the little dining-room, where a grate-full of coals was blazing, and made her take an arm-chair near the fire. Then I began to talk to her; but I made my remarks at long intervals, so that, after a few moments, she fell back upon the cushions, and slept.
When I was assured of her slumber, I rose, and, woman that I am, walked to the mirror. I saw that I was pale, and wondered what he would think of me. Then I went into his room, and stood beside him. I had never before thought him handsome, but the pallor of his skin made his eyes dark and full of languor; the moisture upon his hair gave it a gloss which it never had worn in health, and his lips were full and crimson. To me, at that moment, he looked surpassingly beautiful.
He saw me at once, and after we had gazed at each other for a few moments, he put out his arms and said, "Louise, Louise;" and I sank down into his arms.
The lights in the room had burned out, and the first gray tints of morning began to appear, when I felt a fearful shudder pass over Mark's form, and he writhed himself free from my embrace. Then he asked hoarsely for water.
I sprang up, gave him a drink, and then stood at his bedside.
His eyes were on fire; his cheeks were covered with a burning flush, and his hands trembled as he used them in gesticulation.
"Louise," he said, "I am dying."
Then an indefinable terror seized me, and I crouched down beside the bed, but my eyes were fascinatedly fixed upon his.
"Louise, they told me, the doctors told me, that you were my death; they told me that your love had killed me; and they wanted me to quit you, Louise."
He put out his arms toward me, but I shrank from him with my blood curdled.
"Louise, I mocked at them. I said you could not kill me, for you had my life and soul in you as well as your own. God! what a pain!"
His form was thrown up from the bed in his agony, and then fell down again.
"Mark, what can I do for you, darling?"
"Did you speak, Louise!" he said with a wild stare. "I saw your lips move, but only heard your low, sweet voice saying, 'Mark, Mark, I love you.' I hear it always. I feel your breath upon my lips now. Come here, Louise. Quick!"
I bent toward him. His arms caught me in a fierce embrace, and so he held me as if he would have pressed my very life into his bosom, and he fastened his red lips on mine.
And there, in that clasp, the fires faded from his eyes, and his lips froze there upon mine.
I care not for what the doctors tell me. Mark is dead, and I am dying also; but slowly, too slowly!