George Gissing

“ Piers knew it, dwelt upon it as a perilous fact; it had no application to his love for Irene Derwent. Indeed, Piers was rich in that least common form of intelligence—the intelligence of the heart. Emotional perspicacity, the power of recognising through all forms of desire one's true affinity in the other sex, is bestowed upon one mortal in a vast multitude. Not lack of opportunity alone accounts for the failure of men and women to mate becomingly; only the elect have eyes to see, even where the field of choice is freely opened to them. But Piers Otway saw and knew, once and for ever. ”

“ Rarely a day—very rarely a day—that the thought of Irene did not warm his heart and exalt his ambition. He had yielded to the fleshly impulse, and the measure of his lapse was the sincerity of that nobler desire; he had not the excuse of the ordinary man, nor ever tried to allay his conscience with facile views of life. What times innumerable had he murmured her name, until it was become to him the only woman's name that sounded in truth womanly—all others cold to his imagination. What long evenings had he passed, yonder by the Black Sea, content merely to dream of Irene Derwent ”

“ You make an illusion for yourself, Miss Hannaford. For a holiday when one's rich, yes, Italy is not bad—though there is fever, and there are thieves—oh, thieves! Of course the man who is poor will steal—ecco! It amuses me, when the English talk of Italy."
"But you are proud of—of your memories?"
"Memories!" Mr. Florio laughed a whole melody. "One is not proud of former riches when one has become a beggar. It is you, the English, who can be proud of the past, because you can be proud of the present. You have grown free, free, free! Rich, rich, rich, ah!"
Olga laughed. ”

“ As if drawn irresistibly, Olga followed. Head down, arms hanging in the limpness of shame, she followed, but without drawing nearer. At the corner of the square, Florio, as if accidentally, turned his head; in an instant, he stood before her.
"Then you do not wish good-bye?"
"You are very cruel! How can I let you think such things? You know it's false!"
"But there must be explanation!"
"I can easily explain. But not here—one can't talk in the street——"
"Naturally!—Listen! It is twelve o'clock. You go home; you eat: you repose. At three o'clock, I pay you a visit. Why not? ”

“ He feared the streets at night-time; in his loneliness and misery, a gleam upon some wanton face would perchance have lured him, as had happened ere now. Not so much at the bidding of his youthful blood, as out of mere longing for companionship, the common cause of disorder in men condemned to solitude in great cities. A woman's voice, the touch of a soft hand—this is what men so often hunger for, when they are censured for lawless appetite. But Piers Otway knew himself, and chose to sit alone in the dreary lodging-house. Then he thought of Irene, trying to forget what had happened. ”

“ Irene could not answer.
"I have a pleasant choice," he pursued. "I can keep silence—which would mean scandal, affecting both of us, according to people's disposition. Or I can say with simple pathos, 'Miss Derwent begged me to release her.' Neither alternative is agreeable to me. It may be unchivalrous. Possibly another man would beg to be allowed to sacrifice his reputation, to ensure your quiet release. To be frank with you, I value my reputation, I value my chances in life. I have no mind to make myself appear worse than I am." ”

“ Irene, though much in earnest, was moved to laugh.
"After all, you know," she said, "they have less worry."
"Of course they have, and live more useful lives, if it comes to that."
"A useful life isn't to be despised, you know."
Olga looked at her cousin; so fixedly that Irene had to turn away, and in a moment spoke as though changing the subject.
"Have you heard that Mr. Otway is coming to England again?"
"What!" cried Olga with sudden astonishment. "You are thinking of him—of Piers Otway?"
Irene became the colour of the rose; her eyes flashed with annoyance. ”

“ Two years had gone by since that April night when Piers Otway suffered things unspeakable in flesh and spirit, thinking that for him the heavens had no more radiance, life no morrow. The memory was faint; he found it hard to imagine that the loss of a woman he did not love could so have afflicted him. Olga Hannaford—Mrs. Florio—was matter for a smile; he hoped that he might some day meet her again, and take her hand with the old friendliness, and wish her well. ”

“ But in their table-talk appeared no pedantry; things merely human were as interesting to them as to the babbler of any drawing-room, and their inexhaustible kindliness sweetened every word they spoke.
Nothing more salutary for Irene Derwent than this sojourn with persons whom she in every way respected—with whom there was not the least temptation to exhibit her mere dexterities. In London, during this past season, she had sometimes talked as a young, clever and admired girl is prone to do; always to the mockery of her sager self when looking back on such easy triumphs. ”

“ Alone in the drawing-room Irene longed for the end of so-called day, that she might shut out that spirit-crushing blotch of bare trees and ugly houses. She thought of a sudden, how much harder we make life than it need be, by dwelling amid scenes that disgust, in air that lowers vitality. There fell on her a mood of marvelling at the aims and the satisfactions of mankind. This hideous oblong, known as Bryanston Square—how did it come to seem a desirable place of abode? Nay, how was it for a moment tolerable to reasoning men and women? ”

“ Just as tea was being served, there sounded a voice welcome to no one present, that of Lee Hannaford. He came forward with his wonted air of preoccupation; a well-built man, in the prime of life, carefully dressed, his lips close-set, his eyes seemingly vacant, but in reality very attentive; a pinched ironical smile meant for cordiality. After greetings, he stood before Miss Derwent's chair conversing with her; a cup of tea in his steady hand, his body just bent, his forehead curiously wrinkled—a habit of his when he talked for civility's sake and nothing else. ”

“ Most of his time Piers spent in rambling alone about the moorland, for health and for weariness. When unoccupied, he durst not be physically idle; the passions that ever lurked to frenzy him could only be baffled at such times by vigorous exercise. His cold bath in the early morning was followed by play of dumb-bells. He had made a cult of physical soundness; he looked anxiously at his lithe, well-moulded limbs; feebleness, disease, were the menaces of a supreme hope. Ideal love dwells not in the soul alone, but in every vein and nerve and muscle of a frame strung to perfect service. ”

“ For the most part, men who have great good fortune, in marriage, or in anything else, are incapable of tasting their success. It is the imaginative being in the crowd below who marvels and is thrilled.
How was it with Arnold Jacks? Did he understand what had befallen him? If so, on what gleaming heights did he now live and move! What rapture of gratitude must possess the man! What humility! What arrogance!
Piers had not met him since the engagement was made known; he hoped not to meet him for a long time. Happily, in this holiday season, there was no fear of an invitation to Queen's Gate. ”

“ He could only hope for it in marriage; but what was marriage without ideal love? Impossible that he should ever love another woman as he had loved, as he still loved, Irene. The ordinary man seeks a wife just as he takes any other practical step necessary to his welfare; he marries because he must, not because he has met with the true companion of his life; he mates to be quiet, to be comfortable, to get on with his work, whatever it be. Love in the high sense between man and woman is of all things the most rare. ”

“ She loved the memories and imaginings borne upon the stillness of these grey old towers.
The fortress of warrior-lords, the prison of a queen, the Royalist refuge—fallen now into such placid dreaminess of age. Into the dark chamber above, desolate, legend-haunted, perchance in some moment of the night there fell through the narrow window-niche a pale moonbeam, touching the floor, the walls of stone; such light in gloom as may have touched the face of Mary herself, wakeful with her recollections and her fears. Musing it in her fancy, Irene thought of love and death. ”

“ Some girl, of delicate instinct, of purpose sweet and pure, wasting her unloved life in toil and want and indignity; some man, whose youth and courage strove against a mean environment, whose eyes grew haggard in the vain search for a companion promised in his dreams; they lived, these two, parted perchance only by the wall of neighbour houses, yet all huge London was between them, and their hands would never touch. Beside this hunger for love, what was the stomach-famine of a multitude that knew no other?
The spring drew nigh, and Otway dreaded its coming. ”

“ He murmured the haunting name—Irene. As well as for her who bore it, he loved the name for its meaning. Peace! As a child he had been taught that no word was more beautiful, more solemn; at this moment, he could hear it in his father's voice, sounding as a note of music, with a tremor of deep feeling. Peace! Every year that passed gave him a fuller understanding of his father's devotion to that word in all its significance; he himself knew something of the same fervour, and was glad to foster it in his heart. Peace! What better could a man pursue? ”

“ For the thing which is common in fable is all but unknown in life: a man, capable of loving ardently, who for the sake of one woman, beyond his hope, sacrifices love altogether. Piers Otway, who read much verse, had not neglected his Browning. He knew the transcendent mood of Browning's ideal lover—the beatific dream of love eternal, world after world, hoping for ever, and finding such hope preferable to every less noble satisfaction. For him, a mood only, passing with a smile and a sigh. ”

“ Piers was overcome with amazement. He sat looking into the eyes which stared at him with their agony of shame.
"You mean Daniel?" he faltered.
"Yes—Daniel Otway. It is false—it is false! I am not guilty of this! It seems to me like a hateful plot—if one could believe anyone so wicked. I saw him last night. Oh, I must tell you all, else you'll never believe me—I saw him last night. How can anyone behave so to a helpless woman? I never did him anything but kindness. He has me in his power, and he is merciless." ”

“ Portraits of brides in an illustrated paper sometimes wrought him to intolerable agitation—the mood of his early manhood, as when he stood before the print shop in the Haymarket; now that he had lost Irene, the whole world of beautiful women called again to his senses and his soul. With the cooler moment came a reminder that these lovely faces were for the most part mere masks, tricking out a very ordinary woman, more likely than not unintelligent, unhelpful, as the ordinary human being of either sex is wont to be. ”

“ Irene continued, subduing her voice.
"Incredible that men can come up here just to bang guns and see beautiful birds fall dead! One would think that what they saw here would stop their hands—that this silence would fill their minds and hearts, and make it impossible!"
Her voice had never trembled with such emotion in Helen's hearing. It was not Irene's habit to speak in this way. She had the native reticence of English women, preferring to keep silence when she felt strongly, or to disguise her feeling with irony and jest. ”

“ He felt the joy of combat; sped to the City like any other man, intent on holding his own amid the furious welter, seeing a delight in the computation of his chances; at once a fighter and a gambler, like those with whom he rubbed shoulders in the roaring ways. He overtaxed his energy, and in any case there must have come reaction. It came with violence soon after that day at Malvern.
The weather was hot; one should have been far away from these huge rampart-streets, these stifling burrows of commerce. But here toil and stress went on as usual, and Piers Otway saw it all in a lurid light. ”

“ For the men capable of passionate love (and they are few) to miss love is to miss everything. Life has but the mockery of consolation for that one gift denied. The heart may be dulled by time; it is not comforted. Illusion if it be, it is that which crowns all other illusions whereof life is made. The man must prove it, or he is born in vain.
At sunrise, Piers dressed himself, and made ready for his journey. ”