they left on the evening train in order to catch the morning train out of munich. julia, who had been sitting inertly in her room, too listless to go to bed, heard the carriage rattle down the street, and sprang to her feet with a wild sense of protest and despair. it required all her self-control to refrain from ringing for a droschke and following before it was too late. then, angry at this complete surrender to her femininity, she undressed and went to bed.
here, she discovered to her dismay that california was not farther off than sleep. perversely, she would not relax, nor go through any of the other forms with which she had always been able to summon sleep when excited. she doubted if they would conquer these new impressions, but refused to give them a trial. she lay awake until nearly dawn, the events of the day marching through her brain with maddening reiteration. she dreaded sleep, also, for now at least her brain was stimulated, and she guessed that it would be correspondingly depressed upon awakening. so it was. the weather, also, had changed. it was raining.
when julia heard the heavy raindrops splashing on her balcony, she sat up with a gasp of horror, then laughed grimly. but this conspiracy of nature gave her a certain obstinate fortitude, and she rose at once, took a cold bath, and dressed. but when she opened her door to go down to the dining-room, her courage failed her, and she rang and ordered breakfast to be brought upstairs.
“what am i to do?” she thought in terror. “what am i to do?”
it rained all day. julia had brought no storm clothes. she prowled about the halls, getting what exercise she could, but dared not go downstairs. she sent for books from the library, but they might have been written in greek. she summoned resolution to go to the dining-room at seven o’clock, but turned at the door, and ran back to her room. she saw tay at every turn, and to sit alone at the table with his empty chair opposite, was beyond her endurance. nor could she eat the food brought to her room. she went to bed again, and slept fitfully.
she awoke in the small hours to hear it still raining, and this time she fell into a fury over her demoralization.
“and this is love!” she thought. “terrors! ignominy! a will turned to water. i’d not be more helpless if i were in a hospital with typhoid fever.”
her mind suddenly flew to the conversation with her friends on the night she had last dined with ishbel. should she go to paris and rid herself of the disease once for all? what prospect of happiness if love were able to induce a misery keener than any of its compensations? if she could feel like this now, knowing that he loved her, and that the separation was but a matter of time, what might she not suffer if he ceased to love her, if he gave her cause for jealousy, if she found herself disappointed in him? it would be worse, far worse. now, at least, she was—not free; no one ever felt more of a slave—but at least with the power to attain freedom. there would be a deep satisfaction, to say nothing of relief, in the knowledge that she never need think of him again—this man that had destroyed her fine poise, her remarkable powers, made her the slave of the race, the victim of the ancient instinct, a mere instrument upon which nature was playing her old tune in contemptuous disregard of those years in which she had dwelt on impersonal heights seldom attained by young and beautiful women. she almost hated him. better have done with it at once. in all her life with france she had never known depression like this, for love adds the sense of impotence to calamity.
she got out of bed, without ringing for her bath, and began to pack her trunk. she didn’t care if she never took a bath again. she hated herself, and she hated tay. above all she hated the rain.
but in the midst of her packing she sat back on the floor and scowled. to receive suggestions one must be perfectly amenable. there must be no reserve at the back of the head. although she ground her teeth, she admitted that she would permit no man, no science, to destroy the image of tay in her mind, root him out of her life. nor would she confess herself a coward—nor violate the jealous instincts of her sex. if the time came when she must banish him, she would do it herself. good god! she was female all through. suffering was a part of her birthright. she would give up not the least of the accompaniments of love.
cursing herself for a fool, she rang for her bath, dressed herself, and determined to walk out of doors, if the valley had turned into a lake.
but by the time she had swallowed her coffee and rolls the skies had cleared, and she started out with a guide and a sled. there was always excitement in tobogganing. for a bit the keen air revived her, but the hills and valley had new terrors, for every step reminded her of her lover. black protest left her, but was followed by a sadness so profound that she feared to dissolve in the presence of her guide, and sent him home. she had planned to visit the lake, but she found that it would be as easy to break her word and follow tay to london.
a new and horrid fear had begun to haunt her. did he really love her as he had loved her before she had made him, for a few moments, at least, the plaything of her will and her science? he had forgiven her, but must not such a memory rankle, eventually induce a permanent resentment—fear—hatred possibly?
she returned to her room, the only place unassociated with him. but although it was a refuge in a sense, she found little comfort in it, for the very atmosphere was thick with her long hours of misery. she sat down and made a deliberate attempt to banish her depression, that manifest of nature’s resentment at even the temporary balking of her desires.
“the ancient instinct!” she thought bitterly. “we are all the same fools when it comes to a man—the man—when the race is trying to struggle on through its victims.” she looked back upon the past eight years as upon a period of transcendent happiness. more than ever she was convinced that the only unmitigated happiness lay in self-completion, in independence of the sex in man. love was a splendid disease induced by nature to further her one end; accompanied by moments of hallucination called happiness, but which in the last analysis were but the prelude to a lifetime of every variety of sorrow and disillusion. on the other hand, the women that steered safely clear of this smiling island with a thousand jagged teeth beneath the rippling waters, and elected to stand alone, were free to accept the other great gifts of life, to attain to a form of serenity and content, beside which love and its delusions were the earthly hell. in the last four years she had never cast a thought to love, the future had loomed as perfect as the present. and she had weakly slid down into chaos!
the immortal women! oh, lord! oh, lord!
she reviewed her life from the time when, the wife of an abhorred husband, she had begun, unconsciously at first, to build up that strength, which, when the crucial tests came, enabled her to control, in a measure, the present, to exult in the knowledge that she had proved herself stronger than life; instead of losing her mind, or becoming the plaything of men. she had even dismissed nigel herbert when he came with freedom and something like happiness in his hand; proud of her strength to work out her destiny unaided.
strength! her mind flew from this vision of past solidarity to her years at the feet of the wise men of benares. it was not pleasant to dwell upon the compliments of hadji sadr?, but she recalled his initiations and suggestions, and those of swani dambaba; they had given her a power over herself and others seldom possessed by occidentals. but she could hardly formulate them; they were enveloped in a haze, as elusive and remote as dreams. had she been but cunningly equipped to play her part in the great battle; and, the part played, was she perchance set free to follow the commoner destiny of woman? there was some satisfaction in the thought, but her ego felt slapped in the face. she had fancied her destiny mightily, and this anticlimax was no part of the program of the immortal women. still, why not? her inner vision, sharpened though it might have been by her masters, could not pierce the future, nor her judgment, while captive in the gray matter of the mortal brain, presume to determine exactly what destinies those immortal women had mapped out for themselves on earth. for all she knew tay might have been composed to save his country, and hers the glorious part to help him.
but at this point she sat down on the floor once more and finished the packing of her trunk. none knew better than she the distinguished powers of the human mind for self-deception. with her own personal gift for subtle reasoning, to say nothing of her imagination, she could persuade herself in another fifteen minutes that it was her duty to take the first steamer for new york and await tay in the facile state of nevada. she should reason no more, but be guided by events. meanwhile let love devour her, burn her up, torment her with fears, exalt her with visions of the perfect union. but not in partenkirchen. she should amuse herself in berlin until tay’s final telegram set her free to go to nevis. “the dog to its kennel,” she thought grimly. “that’s the place for me. i’ll find my balance there if anywhere.”
