Athalie
Page 168The following day Clive replied to his wife by cable: "As it seems to
make no unpleasant difference to you I have concluded to remain in New
York. Please take whatever steps you may find most convenient and
agreeable for yourself."
And, following this he wrote her: "I am inexpressibly sorry to cause you any new annoyance and
to arouse once more your just impatience and resentment. But
I see no use in a recapitulation of my shortcomings and of
your own many disappointments in the man you married.
"Please remember that I have always assumed all blame for our
marriage; and that I shall always charge myself with it. I
have no reply to make to your reproaches,--no defence; I was
not in love with you when I married you--which is as serious
do not now blame you for a very natural refusal to tolerate
anything approaching the sympathy and intimacy that ought to
exist between husband and wife.
"I did entertain a hazy idea that affection and perhaps love
might be ultimately possible even under the circumstances of
such a marriage as ours; and in a youthful, ignorant, and
inexperienced way I attempted to bring it about. My notions
of our mutual obligations were very vague and indefinite.
"Please believe I did not realise how utterly distasteful any
such ideas were to you, and how deep was your personal
disinclination for the man you married.
rid you of myself, and gave you a chance to live your life in
your own way unharassed by the interference of a young,
ignorant, and probably aggressive man.
"Your aversion to motherhood was, after all, your own affair.
Man has no right to demand that of woman. I took a very
bullying and intolerant attitude toward you--not, as I now
realise, from any real conviction on the subject, but because
I liked and wanted children, and also because I was
influenced by the cant of the hour--the fashion being to
demand of woman, on ethical grounds, quantitative
reproduction as a marriage offering to the Almighty. As
an admirable and religious duty. Nothing, even in the Old
Testament, is more stupid than such a doctrine; no child
should ever be born unwelcome to both parents.
"I am sorry I could not find your circle of friends
interesting. I sometimes think I might have, had you and I
been mutually sympathetic. But the situation was impossible;
our ideas, interests, convictions, tastes, were radically at
variance; we had absolutely nothing in common to build on.
What marriage ties could endure the strain of such
conditions? The fault was mine, Winifred; I am sorry for
you.