The Complete Works of George Bernard Shaw. GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

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      Gertrude raised her head proudly.

      “It is true,” continued Trefusis, observing the gesture with some anger, “that he thinks more highly of you than you deserve; but you, on the other hand, think too lowly of him. When you marry him you must save him from a cruel disenchantment by raising yourself to the level he fancies you have attained. This will cost you an effort, and the effort will do you good, whether it fail or succeed. As for him, he will find his just level in your estimation if your thoughts reach high enough to comprehend him at that level.”

      Gertrude moved impatiently.

      “What!” he said quickly. “Are my long-winded sacrifices to the god of reason distasteful? I believe I am involuntarily making them so because I am jealous of the fellow after all. Nevertheless I am serious; I want you to get married; though I shall always have a secret grudge against the man who marries you. Agatha will suspect me of treason if you don’t. Erskine will be a disappointed man if you don’t. You will be moody, wretched, and — and unmarried if you don’t.”

      Gertrude’s cheeks flushed at the word jealous, and again at his mention of Agatha. “And if I do,” she said bitterly, “what then?”

      “If you do, Agatha’s mind will be at ease, Erskine will be happy, and you! You will have sacrificed yourself, and will have the happiness which follows that when it is worthily done.”

      “It is you who have sacrificed me,” she said, casting away her reticence, and looking at him for the first time during the conversation.

      “I know it,” he said, leaning towards her and half whispering the words. “Is not renunciation the beginning and the end of wisdom? I have sacrificed you rather than profane our friendship by asking you to share my whole life with me. You are unfit for that, and I have committed myself to another union, and am begging you to follow my example, lest we should tempt one another to a step which would soon prove to you how truly I tell you that you are unfit. I have never allowed you to roam through all the chambers of my consciousness, but I keep a sanctuary there for you alone, and will keep it inviolate for you always. Not even Agatha shall have the key, she must be content with the other rooms — the drawingroom, the working-room, the dining-room, and so forth. They would not suit you; you would not like the furniture or the guests; after a time you would not like the master. Will you be content with the sanctuary?” Gertrude bit her lip; tears came into her eyes. She looked imploringly at him. Had they been alone, she would have thrown herself into his arms and entreated him to disregard everything except their strong cleaving to one another.

      “And will you keep a corner of your heart for me?”

      She slowly gave him a painful look of acquiescence. “Will you be brave, and sacrifice yourself to the poor man who loves you? He will save you from useless solitude, or from a worldly marriage — I cannot bear to think of either as your fate.”

      “I do not care for Mr. Erskine,” she said, hardly able to control her voice; “but I will marry him if you wish it.”

      “I do wish it earnestly, Gertrude.”

      “Then, you have my promise,” she said, again with some bitterness.

      “But you will not forget me? Erskine will have all but that — a tender recollection — nothing.”

      “Can I do more than I have just promised?”

      “Perhaps so; but I am too selfish to be able to conceive anything more generous. Our renunciation will bind us to one another as our union could never have done.”

      They exchanged a long look. Then he took out his watch, and began to speak of the length of their journey, now nearly at an end. When they arrived in London the first person they recognized on the platform was Mr. Jansenius.

      “Ah! you got my telegram, I see,” said Trefusis. “Many thanks for coming. Wait for me whilst I put this lady into a cab.”

      When the cab was engaged, and Gertrude, with her maid, stowed within, he whispered to her hurriedly:

      “In spite of all, I have a leaden pain here” (indicating his heart). “You have been brave, and I have been wise. Do not speak to me, but remember that we are friends always and deeply.”

      He touched her hand, and turned to the cabman, directing him whither to drive. Gertrude shrank back into a corner of the vehicle as it departed. Then Trefusis, expanding his chest like a man just released from some cramping drudgery, rejoined Mr. Jansenius.

      “There goes a true woman,” he said. “I have been persuading her to take the very best step open to her. I began by talking sense, like a man of honor, and kept at it for half an hour, but she would not listen to me. Then I talked romantic nonsense of the cheapest sort for five minutes, and she consented with tears in her eyes. Let us take this hansom. Hi! Belsize Avenue. Yes; you sometimes have to answer a woman according to her womanishness, just as you have to answer a fool according to his folly. Have you ever made up your mind, Jansenius, whether I am an unusually honest man, or one of the worst products of the social organization I spend all my energies in assailing — an infernal scoundrel, in short?”

      “Now pray do not be absurd,” said Mr. Jansenius. “I wonder at a man of your ability behaving and speaking as you sometimes do.”

      “I hope a little insincerity, when meant to act as chloroform — to save a woman from feeling a wound to her vanity — is excusable. By-the-bye, I must send a couple of telegrams from the first post-office we pass. Well, sir, I am going to marry Agatha, as I sent you word. There was only one other single man and one other virgin down at Brandon Beeches, and they are as good as engaged. And so —

      “‘Jack shall have Jill, Nought shall go ill, The man shall have his mare again; And all shall be well.’”

      APPENDIX

       LETTER TO THE AUTHOR FROM MR. SIDNEY TREFUSIS.

       Table of Contents

      My Dear Sir: I find that my friends are not quite satisfied with the account you have given of them in your clever novel entitled “An Unsocial Socialist.” You already understand that I consider it my duty to communicate my whole history, without reserve, to whoever may desire to be guided or warned by my experience, and that I have no sympathy whatever with the spirit in which one of the ladies concerned recently told you that her affairs were no business of yours or of the people who read your books. When you asked my permission some years ago to make use of my story, I at once said that you would be perfectly justified in giving it the fullest publicity whether I consented or not, provided only that you were careful not to falsify it for the sake of artistic effect. Now, whilst cheerfully admitting that you have done your best to fulfil that condition, I cannot help feeling that, in presenting the facts in the guise of fiction, you have, in spite of yourself, shown them in a false light. Actions described in novels are judged by a romantic system of morals as fictitious as the actions themselves. The traditional parts of this system are, as Cervantes tried to show, for the chief part, barbarous and obsolete; the modern additions are largely due to the novel readers and writers of our own century — most of them half-educated women, rebelliously slavish, superstitious, sentimental, full of the intense egotism fostered by their struggle for personal liberty, and, outside their families, with absolutely no social sentiment except love. Meanwhile, man, having fought and won his fight for this personal liberty, only СКАЧАТЬ