The Burden - Christie Agatha (читать книги TXT) 📗

"Why wouldn't you give me an opinion just now?"

"It would only have been an opinion."

"Well?"

"And it might have influenced you… I should think you're easily influenced."

Her face grew sombre again.

"Yes. Perhaps that's what was wrong."

He waited for a moment or two, then he said in a matter-of-fact voice:

"What exactly is wrong?"

"Nothing." She looked at him despairingly. "Nothing. I've got everything any woman could want."

"You're generalising again. You're not any woman. You're you. Have you got everything you want?"

"Yes, yes, yes! Love and kindness and money and luxury, and beautiful surroundings and companionship-everything. All the things that I would have chosen for myself. No, it's me. There's something wrong with me."

She looked at him defiantly. Strangely enough, she was comforted when he answered matter-of-factly:

"Oh yes. There's something wrong with you-that's very clear."

3

She pushed her brandy-glass a little way away from her.

She said: "Can I talk about myself?"

"If you like."

"Because if I did, I might just see where-it all went wrong. That would help, I think."

"Yes. It might help."

"It's all been very nice and ordinary-my life, I mean. A happy childhood, a lovely home. I went to school and did all the ordinary things, and nobody was ever nasty to me; perhaps if they had been, it would have been better for me. Perhaps I was a spoiled brat-but no, I don't really think so. And I came home from school and played tennis and danced, and met young men, and wondered what job to take up-all the usual things."

"Sounds straightforward enough."

"And then I fell in love and married." Her voice changed slightly.

"And lived happily…"

"No." Her voice was thoughtful. "I loved him, but I was unhappy very often." She added: "That's why I asked you if happiness really mattered."

She paused, and then went on:

"It's so hard to explain. I wasn't very happy, but yet in a curious way it was all right-it was what I'd chosen, what I wanted. I didn't-go into it with my eyes shut. Of course I idealised him-one does. But I remember now, waking up very early one morning-it was about five o'clock, just before dawn. That's a cold, truthful time, don't you think? And I knew then-saw, I mean-what the future would become, I knew I shouldn't be really happy, I saw what he was like, selfish and ruthless in a gay kind of charming way, but I saw, too, that he was charming, and gay and light-hearted-and that I loved him, and that no one else would do, and that I would rather be unhappy, married to him, than smug and comfortable without him. And I thought I could, with luck, and if I wasn't too stupid, make a go of it. I accepted the fact that I loved him more than he would ever love me, and that I mustn't-ever-ask him for more than he wanted to give."

She stopped a moment, and then went on:

"Of course I didn't put it to myself as clearly as all that. I'm describing now what was then just a feeling. But it was real. I went back again to thinking him wonderful and inventing all sorts of noble things about him that weren't in the least true. But I'd had my moment-the moment when you do see what lies ahead of you, and you can turn back or go on. I did think in those cold early morning minutes when you see how difficult and-yes-frightening things are-I did think of turning back. But instead I chose to go on."

He said very gently:

"And you regret-?"

"No, no!" She was vehement. "I've never regretted. Every minute of it was worthwhile! There's only one thing to regret-that he died."

The deadness was gone from her eyes now. It was no longer a woman drifting away from life towards fairy-land, who leaned forward facing him across the table. It was a woman passionately alive.

"He died too soon," she said. "What is it Macbeth says? 'She should have died hereafter.' That's what I feel about him. He should have died hereafter."

He shook his head.

"We all feel that when people die."

"Do we? I wouldn't know. I know he was ill. I realise he'd have been a cripple for life. I realise he bore it all badly and hated his life, and took it out on everybody and principally on me. But he didn't want to die. In spite of everything he didn't want to die. That's why I resent it so passionately for him. He'd what amounts to a genius for living-even half a life, even a quarter, he would have enjoyed. Oh!" She raised her arms passionately. "I hate God for making him die."

She stopped then, and looked at him doubtfully. "I shouldn't have said that-that I hated God."

He said calmly: "It's much better to hate God than to hate your fellow-men. You can't hurt God."

"No. But He can hurt you."

"Oh no, my dear. We hurt each other, and hurt ourselves."

"And make God our scapegoat?"

"That is what He has always been. He bears our burdens-the burden of our revolts, of our hates, yes, and of our love."

Chapter Three

1

In the afternoons, Llewellyn had formed the habit of going for long walks. He would start up from the town on a widely curving, zig-zagging road that led steadily upwards until the town and the bay lay beneath him, looking curiously unreal.in the stillness of the afternoon. It was the hour of the siesta, and no gaily-coloured dots moved on the water-front, or on the occasionally glimpsed roads and streets. Up here on the hills, the only human creatures Llewellyn met were goat-herds, little boys who wandered singing to themselves in the sunshine, or sat playing games of their own with little heaps of stones. These would give Llewellyn a grave good afternoon, without curiosity. They were accustomed to foreigners who strode energetically along, their shirts open at the neck, perspiring freely. Such foreigners were, they knew, either writers or painters. Though not numerous, they were, at least, no novelty. As Llewellyn had no apparatus of canvas or easel or even sketch-book with him, they put him down as a writer, and said to him politely: "Good-afternoon."

Llewellyn returned their greetings and strode on.

He had no particular purpose in his wandering. He observed the scenery, but it had for him no special significance. Significance was within him, not yet clear and recognised, but gradually gaining form and shape.

A path led him through a grove of bananas. Once within its green spaces, he was struck by how immediately all sense of purpose or direction had to be abandoned. There was no knowing how far the bananas extended, and where or when he would emerge. It might be a tiny path, or it might extend for miles. One could only continue on one's way. Eventually one would emerge at the point where the path had led one. That point.was already in existence, fixed. He himself could not determine it. What he could determine was his own progression-his feet trod the path as a result of his own will and purpose. He could turn back or he could continue. He had the freedom of his own integrity. To travel hopefully…

Presently with almost disconcerting suddenness, he came out from the green stillness of the bananas on to a bare hill-side. A little below him, to one side of a path that zig-zagged down the side of a hill, a man sat painting at an easel.

His back was to Llewellyn, who saw only the powerful line of shoulders outlined beneath the thin yellow shirt and a broad-brimmed battered felt hat stuck on the back of the painter's head.

Llewellyn descended the path. As he drew abreast, he slackened speed, looking with frank interest at the work proceeding on the canvas. After all, if a painter settled himself by what was evidently a well-trodden path, it was clear that he had no objection to being overlooked.