• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 2223 0

was something in it that was not understood, something that, somehow, remained unspoken; and yet those husbands did not puzzle their heads over complicated problems, but walked through married life with such even and deliberate steps as though they had nothing to solve and discover. ‘Are they perhaps right? Perhaps there really is no need of anything else,’ he thought, distrusting himself, as he saw how some men who went through love quickly as the ABC of marriage or as a form of gallantry, just as if they had made a bow on entering a drawing-room, and quickly applied themselves to more important matters! They fling the spring-time of life away impatiently; many of them, indeed, look askance at their wives for the rest of their lives as though unable to forgive themselves for having been foolish enough to fall in love with them. There are others whom love does not forsake for years, sometimes till old age, but the satyr’s smile never forsakes them, either…. Finally, most men enter into matrimony as they buy an estate and enjoy its substantial amenities: a wife keeps the house in excellent order – she is the housekeeper, the mother, the governess; they look upon love as a practical-minded farmer looks upon the beautiful surroundings of his estate; that is, he gets used to it at once and never notices it again.

‘What is it, then?’ he asked himself. ‘An innate inability due to the laws of nature or lack of education and training? Where is the sympathy that never loses its natural charm, that never wears motley, that undergoes modifications but is never extinguished! What is the natural shade and colour of this ubiquitous and all-permeating blessing, of this sap of life?’

He cast a prophetic glance into the distant future, and there arose before him, as in a mist, the image of love and with it of a woman clothed in its colour and radiant with its light, an image so simple, but bright and pure. ‘A dream, a dream!’ he said with a smile, recovering from the idle excitement of his reverie. But the outline of this dream lived in his memory in spite of himself. At first this image appeared to him as the personification of the woman of the future; but when, after Olga had grown into womanhood, he saw in her not only the splendour of a fully developed beauty, but also a force ready to face life and eager to understand and fight life’s battles – all the elements of his dream, there arose before him his old and almost forgotten image of love and he began to dream of Olga as its personification, and it seemed to him that in the far-distant future truth would manifest itself in their sympathy for each other – without growing shabby and without abuses of any kind. Without toying with the question of love and marriage and without confusing it with any considerations of money, connexions, and posts, Stolz, however, could not help wondering how to reconcile his external and hitherto indefatigable activity with his inner family life, how, in fact, he could transform himself from a traveller and business-man into a stay-at-home husband. If he was to settle down and put an end to his constant running about from one place to another, how would he fill his life at home? The bringing up and education of children and the direction of their life was not, of course, an easy or unimportant task, but that was still a long way off, and what was he going to do in the meantime? These questions had often troubled him, and he did not find his bachelor life a burden; nor had it occurred to him to put on the shackles of married life as soon as his heart began beating when he found himself in the presence of beauty. That was why he seemed to ignore Olga as a girl and admired her merely as a charming child of great promise. He would, casually and jokingly, throw some new bold idea or some acute observation of life into her eager and receptive mind, arousing in her, without realizing it, a lively understanding of events and a correct view of things; and then he would forget Olga and his casual lessons. And at times, seeing that she had quite original ideas