To Leeward. F. Marion Crawford
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devil into an ill-gotten reputation for cleanliness. The temptation of Saint Anthony may convey a righteous moral lesson, but the temptation of Saint Anthony as described by his namesake's pig would risk being too unsavoury to be wholesome.
But Marcantonio was young, and he troubled himself about none of these things, supposing everything to be good, beautiful, and enduring, excepting such things as were evidently bad, inasmuch as they were ugly and disagreeable.
Now Miss Leonora Carnethy had long been given over to a sort of sleek, cynic philosophy—the kind of cynicism that uses lavender water in its tub. Her dissatisfaction with the world was genuine, but she found means to alleviate it in the small luxuries and amenities of her daily life. She and her friends had talked the kernel out of life, or thought that they had, but the shell was still fresh and well favoured. Leonora herself was indeed subject to moods and fits of real unhappiness, for she was far too intelligent a person not to long for something beautiful, even when she was most convinced that life was ugly. There were times when she dreamed of an ideal man who should win her, and love her, and give her all the happiness she had missed. And again she would dream of the freedom of the earth-bound soul from ills, and cares, and thorns, and she would enter some silent Roman church and kneel for hours before a dimly lighted altar, praying for rest, and peace, and inspiration of holiness. But there was too much poetic feeling in her religious outpourings. If religion is to be poetic, a very little thing will destroy its harmony; some careless sacristan chatting with a crony in the corner of the church, or a couple of thoughtless children wrangling over a half-penny by the door, or any such little thing, destroyed instantly the fair illusion that lay as balm upon her unrestful soul. Religion must be real to every man if it is to stand the test of reality.
Leonora's views of marriage were therefore more or less subject to her moods. There were days, indeed, few and far between, when her better intelligence got the upper hand of the fictitious fabric of so-called philosophy which she had erected for herself. Then for a brief space she thought of life very much as Marcantonio did, and she contemplated her marriage as a noble and worthy career—for marriage is a career to most women of the world. But then, again, all her uncertainty returned twofold upon her, and the only real thing was the dream of love, the vision of a lover, and the hope of a realised passion. She was so strong and radiantly human, that from the moment when her mind fell into abeyance the material beauty of life sprang up in her heart, until, being disappointed and cast down through not attaining the end of her passionate dreams, she once more sank into a half-religious, half-poetic melancholy. Nevertheless, the strongest element in her character was the desire to be loved, not by every one, but by some one manly man, and loved with all the strength he had, overwhelmingly. Her studies were a refuge when she saw how improbable such a piece of sweet fortune was, and, as might have been expected, they were far from regular and systematic. She read a great deal, especially of such authors as had a reputation for being profound rather than clear, and, as her mind had received no kind of preliminary training, the result was eminently unsatisfactory to herself. To Marcantonio, who knew more about the opera than about philosophy, she seemed a miracle of learning, and she loved to talk with him about theories, generally finding that, in spite of his ignorance, he made extremely sensible remarks upon them. But he always tried to lead her to different subjects, for, in spite of his immense admiration for what he supposed to be her wisdom, he was aware that it seemed very vague, and that it even occasionally bored him.
Leonora had acquired the unfortunate faculty of deceiving herself, and when the fit was upon her she saw things obliquely. In spite of the little prick of conscience that hurt her when she accepted Marcantonio's offer, she had soon persuaded herself that she loved him, on the principle that, since her "standard" was so very "high," she could not possibly have demeaned herself to accepting a man she did not love. It is a very fine thing to believe that we are so far removed from evil that we cannot do wrong, and therefore that whatever we do is infallibly right, no matter how our instincts may cry out against it. It is a most comforting and comfortable vicious circle which we convert into a crown of glory for ourselves on the smallest provocation. So when Leonora was finally married to Marcantonio, she made herself believe that she loved him, and all her vague theories were temporarily cast aside and trampled upon in her determination to realise in him all the happiness she had dreamed of in her ideal.
She had got a husband who did most truly love her, and whose one and absorbing thought would be her happiness, but he was not exactly what she had longed for. She mistook his courtesy for coldness, and his deference for indifference, and since she had persuaded herself that she loved him she wanted to find him a perfect fiery volcano of love and jealousy. Marcantonio was nothing of the kind; he was calm, courteous, and affectionate; he had not the slightest cause for jealousy, and, not in the least understanding his wife, he was perfectly happy.
Of all tests of true love a honeymoon is the severest, and by every right of sensible sequence ought to come last of all in the history of married couples. It is the great destroyer of illusions, and the more illusions there are the greater the destruction. Two people have seen each other occasionally, perhaps for an hour every day—and that is a great deal in Europe—during which meetings they have become more or less deeply enamoured, each of the qualities of the other. People notoriously behave very differently to the people they love and to the world at large; but their behaviour to the world at large is the outcome of their character, whereas their conduct to each other is the result, or the concomitant, of a passion which may or may not be real, profound, and good. But each has a great number of characteristics which practically never appear during those hours of courtship. Suddenly the two are married, and the lid of Pandora's box is hoisted high with a vicious jerk that scares the little imps inside to the verge of distraction, and they fly out incontinent, with an ill savour. If the lid had been gently raised, the evil spirits would probably have issued forth stealthily, and one at a time, without any great fuss, and might not have been noticed. The two condemned ones travel together, eat together, talk together, until in a single month they have exhausted a list of bad qualities that should have lasted at least half a dozen years under ordinary circumstances.
Marcantonio and Leonora travelled for a time, and at last agreed to spend the remainder of the summer in some quiet seaside place in Southern Italy. They soon discovered the fallacy of wandering about Europe with a maid and a quantity of luggage, and they both hoped that under the clear sky of the south they might find exactly what they wanted. So they gravitated to Sorrento and hired a villa overhanging the sea, and Marcantonio suggested vaguely that they might have some one to stay with them if they found it dull. At this Leonora felt injured. The idea of his finding life dull in her company!
"How can you possibly suggest such a thing?" she asked, in a hurt tone.
"Not for myself, my dear," said Marcantonio, with an affectionate smile. "It struck me that you might not find it very amusing. I could never find it dull where you are, ma bien aimée." And indeed he never did. Leonora was pacified, as she almost always was when he was particularly affectionate.
"But, of course," he continued, "you will enjoy the being able to read and study your favourite books."
"I never want to read them now," said Leonora, who chanced that day to be not very philosophically disposed. She had been perusing the latest French impossibility—she found it rather amusing to be allowed to have what she liked now that she was married.
"I should be glad if you never read any more philosophy," said Marcantonio, unwisely saying what was uppermost in his thoughts.
"Really, though," answered Leonora, "I know it all so very superficially that I feel I must go back and be much more thorough. I think I shall take a sound course of Voltaire and Hegel, and that sort of thing, this summer."
Her husband was silent. He began to suspect his wife of being capable of an occasional contradiction for the mere love of it. Besides, he saw no particular connection between the two authors she named. But then he knew very little about them. He looked at Leonora. There was not a trace of unpleasant expression in her face, and she seemed to have merely made the remark in the air, without the least intention of being contradictory or captious. He liked to look at her, she was so fresh and fair. Neither heat nor cold seemed to touch her delicate white skin—her hair was so thick and strong, and her blue eyes so bright. She was the very