The Enemies of Women (Los enemigos de la mujer)

Suddenly, he had a sensation that some one was approaching from behind. He heard a light step, and on turning his head, he saw a woman in mourning.

Suddenly recovering his triumphant joy, he forgot everything: his long wait, his doubts and the fatigue of standing there in endless expectation. He was so sure of the motive which had induced her to ask for this interview, that he went forward to meet her with chivalrous cordiality.

"Oh, Alicia!" he said, holding out both hands at once.

But his hands clutched unavailingly at empty space, without finding anything to take hold of, and finally dropped in dismay.

Lubimoff felt disconcerted at the expression on the woman's face. All the ideas that had been with him until that moment were so many illusions. They vanished in an instant, leaving him dismayed face to face with reality. Of that reality there could be no doubt. There was a look of hardness in the eyes that surveyed him fixedly.

Alicia spoke rapidly, as though she had come on a matter of business with a person rather distasteful to her and wanted to end it as soon as possible, and be rid of his presence.

There was a money matter between them which had to be settled. She had not written to him because, since certain recent happenings, she felt a letter was inadvisable. Besides, she could neither go to Villa Sirena, nor receive him at her home. For that reason, on hearing the day before that Michael, whom she imagined ill, had been seen taking a walk, she had boldly made an appointment with him there, so that they might see each other for a few moments. That was all.

"Let us talk like business men; business men who are in a hurry and do not waste words. I owe you some money and it is impossible for me to have any peace of mind until I return it to you: three hundred thousand francs which your mother gave me, and what you lent me in the Casino – perhaps something more. I have enough to pay you. If you don't care to take the matter up, send me Toledo."

Lubimoff stood there dumbfounded at these unexpected words. After making this proposal, she seemed anxious to get away. Now she had said all she had to say; it annoyed her to remain there with the Prince; she had nothing to add.

"No!" said Michael energetically.

So that was why she had called him? And that was all she had to say to him, after they had been separated for so long?

His refusal was so resolute, and his pained surprise was reflected in his features in such a manner, that Alicia felt it useless to insist.

"Very well; let's not say anything more. I know your character, and I know that we would stay here arguing for hours without any result. I shall try and find a way to return what belongs to you. Good-by, Michael!"

The Prince tried to stop her by gently taking one of her hands, but she withdrew it with a nervous gesture of repulsion.

"And you are going away!" he said in a tone of deep discouragement.

The humility in his voice seemed to irritate the Duchess, causing her to stop as she was turning away.

"What did you think?" she asked indignantly. "I am surprised at your self-absorption, your failure to think of other people. Michael! Michael! You'll always be the same; you don't consider any one but yourself: nothing counts but your own desires. You've hurt me so much! And now you say like a child: 'And you are going away, …' What, pray, did you expect after your despicable conduct? I want you to realize it once for all: I despise you. Your presence is odious to me. I despise you!"

Poor Lubimoff saw his conduct once more as he had during his days of voluntary confinement. Alas! Where were the deceitful dreams that had cheered him until then? His sadness, and his repentance were so obvious that Alicia softened the tone of her words.

"Perhaps despise is not the word; but I am sure that you fill me with pity; pity much like that which I feel for myself. We are two poor, mad creatures, Michael: our misfortunes have followed us a long way."

Recalling their lives, Alicia thought of builders who make a serious mistake in putting in the foundation of a building, and go on raising it, imagining that their work is in a straight line, without observing that it is entirely out of plumb, owing to the defect in its base.

"We began wrong. If the world had gone on the same as before, perhaps we would have been able to keep on our feet and be triumphant. Our surroundings sustained us: we were like children."

But the Universal cataclysm had made them lose their balance forever. They were toppling over, with gaps that could never be brought together, ready to fall in a heap.

"We belong to another period, and no one can protect our frailty. I feel pity for you, Michael; and you must feel the same for me, for me, whom you have wronged so deeply!"

The Prince, in spite of his dejected humility, protested. He had been imprudent: that was sure. His aggression in the Casino and the miserable duel had caused a stupid scandal to be sure. But what irreparable harm did she mean, that caused her such profound sorrow? How could his madness, which injured him only, making him the object of comments and laughter, cause her such despair?

Alicia interrupted him with a gesture of impatience, as though she felt it impossible to make him understand her thoughts.

"Look," she said pointing to the church door. "Before, I could go in there. Remember the last time that we saw each other on this spot. I had just been praying, and talking with my son; it was an illusion perhaps; but illusions help us to live. And now it is impossible for me; I feel remorse where before I found hope. And I have you to thank for this, you who took away the last consolation that I had invented for myself."

She no longer looked at the Prince with hostile gaze. Her trembling voice, and her moist eyes, were those of a poor woman making an effort to hide her emotion. Michael stammered in embarrassment, not knowing what to do or say. Had he really been able to do her such an evil turn? When? How?

Alicia, deaf to his questions, was thinking only of herself and her misfortune.

"I had a son, and I lost him," she went on saying. "He was my hope, my one reason for living. The suffering made me look for consolation. What would become of us if we did not have the power of deceiving ourselves by creating new illusions? And I had a second son, a son whom I invented, sad, condemned to die, but young like the other, unfortunate like the other, and lacking a mother to bring joy to his last days. I wanted to be that mother. I can feel only the sweet, protecting joy of maternity; my rôle as a woman is over: all I can see in a man is a son, and you take away this last consolation! You robbed me of my poor joy!"

Lubimoff began to understand. Alicia was talking about Martinez; and he felt once more the sting of jealousy.

"When we saw each other here the last time I had sought a quiet refuge within my sorrow. I was praying for my son in the church, talking with him, and telling him how he was a brother in misfortune to one who was still alive, but who perhaps would soon go to join him. Then, on returning home I found the other, and my illusion was so great, that I was able to fuse them into a single person, imagining that time and the war were all a dream, and that my son was still alive, and had returned from his captivity and was by my side. They do not look alike, I am sure, although I avoid looking at George's pictures – but they seem to me the same; it is the uniform, misfortune, and nearness to death. Besides, the poor boy was so good! He was so timid, satisfied with anything, looking at me with the sweet look of a gentle little creature: he who is so proud! He venerated me like a being descended from an upper world. I was his mother. His words and looks breathed a feeling of deep respect. I wasn't a woman to him: I was something like the angels. And you, with your crazy interference, have spoiled it all. He is no longer my son: my dream has ended. I am obliged to do without his presence, and it is only at rare intervals that he finds open to him a house which I had taught him to consider his home. Through your fault, this boy, in whom I saw a son, is now merely a man, and I, his mother, have become once more a woman."

Lubimoff's features became dark and gloomy with an earthly cast, as on the afternoon of the duel. He was beginning to understand.

"What did you do, Michael!" she continued in a tearful voice. "You aroused the poor boy by your madness. On fighting you, he imagined he was fighting for me, and that I was simply a woman. He saw me suddenly in a new light, as though he had been asleep until then. I might almost be his mother; for women of my class prolong their youth, preserve it artificially, and we are still desirable when women of the lower classes are already coming to old age. Besides, I understand the element of vanity in his admiration, that vanity which exists in all our sentiments. To him I am the unknown, the mysterious, a great lady, a Duchess, brought by these topsy-turvy days within his reach. Poor boy! A few weeks ago he used to laugh in my presence with childlike simplicity, and look at me placidly, without the shadow of an evil thought in his eyes. He was happy, and so was I; while now…!"

The Prince pictured Martinez pursuing Alicia with his amorous desires. "I'll kill him: I must kill him," he said to himself. But this homicidal anger lasted only an instant. The various scenes of the duel passed through his mind: a vision of himself kissing the officer's hand, in a sudden burst of unexplainable humility, which kept returning to torment him like remorse. What could he do now? After what had happened there was something sacred about the man. And once more he gave himself up to his despair, while Alicia went on talking.

"My dream is dead. My son has become my son once more, and Martinez is a man like any other. At present it is impossible for me to pray; I am ashamed to hold imaginary conversation with my real son. I am assailed by thoughts of what I told him; I am overwhelmed when I think that I go on talking with the other boy, in spite of what he has said to me, of what I read in his glances, and of what I know of his real desires. What a wrong you have done me! I lost one son, and can think of him only with remorse; I invented another, and you have taken him away from me."

Then, as though complaining of some superior force that had presided over her destiny, she added:

"What torture! Not to be able to know quiet friendship, and the tranquil days of maternity. Always to have love looming up in front of one! In my younger days I considered that the one aim of life was to inspire admiration and desire, and now I am punished for that indeed. I sought in you a sustaining friendship, and you immediately desired me. I tried to deceive my maternal longings by caring for an unfortunate boy who may die very soon, and this son of my affections talked to me of love. Is it true that women are never able to enjoy the peace and confidence that come to men quite naturally?"

The Prince expressed his wishes, with eagerness and hatred in his voice.

"Don't see him: break with him; close your door to him forever. In that way you will recover your peace of mind, and I … I shall be your friend, I shall be anything you desire, it will be enough for me that I see you."

She greeted his last words with a look of incredulity. Men had promised her so often to be friends! Besides, she knew Michael very well, and did not take the trouble to reply. The one thing that interested her was his advice that she definitely reject the wounded man, and not see him any more. Once more her eyes grew moist.

"Imagine driving the poor boy away! There are certain things you can't understand; you try to order affections about in the same arrogant way that you formerly disposed of people. Do you think I can abandon him? I am his mother in spite of everything, and you know very well how a mother tolerates and forgives things. The poor boy is not to blame for his evil thoughts; it was you who suggested them to him. Besides, it won't last; I have hopes that his foolish desires will die out."

The idea of deserting the crippled soldier aroused her pity, giving an amorous tone to her words.

"What would become of him! He doesn't know any one: he is alone in the world; the other officers are living, in their native land, they have families. Before, he could go and see Clorinda; now 'the General' has gone away, and I am the only one who remains, the only one! And you want me to forget him? You don't know him very well; you are an enemy of his. It is such a delight for me to recall the period of his innocence. He was like my son; no; there was something more about him; a thankfulness, a capacity for veneration concentrated entirely on me, such as I had never known before. You forget how his life hangs on a thread. Nor does he realize it himself; he does not know the real situation he is in; he has illusions of healthy youth; he thinks he will live for many years. Poor fellow! How hard it is for me to pretend that I am angry, to reject him with indignation because of the desires he feels for me … me, who only want to be his mother!"

This tone of sweet pity wounded her listener. Alicia seemed to feel the remorse of a death watch obliged to deny a condemned criminal the satisfaction of his last whim. She was lamenting like a nurse who cannot give a dying man what he asks for in his last gasps.

Michael felt that he guessed the secret of the last interviews between this pseudo-mother and her adopted son. Perhaps she talked to him about his health, momentarily refusing to flatter him in his illusions of health, revealing to him the danger to which his life was exposed; and he, in a suicidal ardor of passion, was perhaps entreating her like a child who has placed all his dreams in a toy: "once, just once."

He was convinced that this was the truth of the matter. He read it in her eyes, which in turn seemed to guess what the Prince was thinking, and she blushed slightly.

"What harm you have done me," she repeated. "I must send him away from me, and I can't bear to desert him. It would be a crime if I abandoned him to his fate. You don't know what this constant struggle means to me. At times I see him hovering around my house; hidden behind the window blinds, I look at him, and I can hardly repress my tears. He seems so sad! I remember my son, who also lived alone, even more friendless than he, and who perhaps became interested in some woman, anxiously desiring many things without succeeding in possessing them, and I feel a desire to call to him, to shout: 'Since that is your dream, my dear child, your last wish in life, take it! Take it, and be happy!' Yet I think of his health, I think of many other things, and I restrain my impulse, and weep, letting him wander about near my house, imagining himself forgotten, though I am thinking of him all the time. Alas! May God give me strength! May I not lose my self control! May I continue to resist my absurd charitableness! Sometimes I fear I won't."

"Oh, Alicia!"

The Prince uttered the words in a tone of desperation. His presentiment was becoming a reality; he could already see that dying youth possessing what he had not been able to obtain. There was a look of homicidal anger in his eyes.

This hostile expression annoyed Alicia, making another woman of her. The harsh look and the cutting tones which had accompanied her arrival appeared in her once more.