第76章 MAURICE KIRKWOOD'S STORY OF HIS LIFE(12)
The common use of the term influence would seem to imply the existence of its correlative,effluence.There is no good reason that I can see,the doctor said to himself,why among the forces which work upon the nervous centres there should not be one which acts at various distances from its source.It may not be visible like the "glory"of the painters,it may not be appreciable by any one of the five senses,and yet it may be felt by the person reached by it as much as if it were a palpable presence,--more powerfully,perhaps,from the mystery which belongs to its mode of action.
Why should not Maurice have been rendered restless and anxious by the unseen nearness of a young woman who was in the next room to him,just as the persons who have the dread of cats are made conscious of their presence through some unknown channel?Is it anything strange that the larger and more powerful organism should diffuse a consciousness of its presence to some distance as well as the slighter and feebler one?Is it strange that this mysterious influence or effluence should belong especially or exclusively to the period of complete womanhood in distinction from that of immaturity or decadence?On the contrary,it seems to be in accordance with all the analogies of nature,--analogies too often cruel in the sentence they pass upon the human female.
Among the many curious thoughts which came up in the doctor's mind was this,which made him smile as if it were a jest,but which he felt very strongly had its serious side,and was involved with the happiness or suffering of multitudes of youthful persons who die without telling their secret:
How many young men have a mortal fear of woman,as woman,which they never overcome,and in consequence of which the attraction which draws man towards her,as strong in them as in others,--oftentimes,in virtue of their peculiarly sensitive organizations,more potent in them than in others of like age and conditions,--in consequence of which fear,this attraction is completely neutralized,and all the possibilities of doubled and indefinitely extended life depending upon it are left unrealized!Think what numbers of young men in Catholic countries devote themselves to lives of celibacy.Think how many young men lose all their confidence in the presence of the young woman to whom they are most attracted,and at last steal away from a companionship which it is rapture to dream of and torture to endure,so does the presence of the beloved object paralyze all the powers of expression.Sorcerers have in all time and countries played on the hopes and terrors of lovers.Once let loose a strong impulse on the centre of inhibition,and the warrior who had faced bayonets and batteries becomes a coward whom the well-dressed hero of the ball-room and leader of the German will put to ignominious flight in five minutes of easy,audacious familiarity with his lady-love.
Yes,the doctor went on with his reflections,I do not know that Ihave seen the term Gynophobia before I opened this manuscript,but Ihave seen the malady many times.Only one word has stood between many a pair of young people and their lifelong happiness,and that word has got as far as the lips,but the lips trembled and would not,could not,shape that little word.All young women are not like Coleridge's Genevieve,who knew how to help her lover out of his difficulty,and said yes before he had asked for an answer.So the wave which was to have wafted them on to the shore of Elysium has just failed of landing them,and back they have been drawn into the desolate ocean to meet no more on earth.
Love is the master-key,he went on thinking,love is the master-key that opens the gates of happiness,of hatred,of jealousy,and,most easily of all,the gate of fear.How terrible is the one fact of beauty!--not only the historic wonder of beauty,that "burnt the topless towers of Ilium "for the smile of Helen,and fired the palaces of Babylon by the hand of Thais,but the beauty which springs up in all times and places,and carries a torch and wears a serpent for a wreath as truly as any of the Eumenides.Paint Beauty with her foot upon a skull and a dragon coiled around her.
The doctor smiled at his own imposing classical allusions and pictorial imagery.Drifting along from thought to thought,he reflected on the probable consequences of the general knowledge of Maurice Kirkwood's story,if it came before the public.
What a piece of work it would make among the lively youths of the village,to be sure!What scoffing,what ridicule,what embellishments,what fables,would follow in the trail of the story!
If the Interviewer got hold of it,how "The People's Perennial and Household Inquisitor"would blaze with capitals in its next issue!
The young fellows'of the place would be disposed to make fun of the whole matter.The young girls-the doctor hardly dared to think what would happen when the story got about among them."The Sachem"of the solitary canoe,the bold horseman,the handsome hermit,--handsome so far as the glimpses they had got of him went,--must needs be an object of tender interest among them,now that he was ailing,suffering,in danger of his life,away from friends,--poor fellow!
Little tokens of their regard had reached his sick-chamber;bunches of flowers with(dainty little notes,some of them pinkish,some three-cornered,some of them with brief messages,others "criss-crossed,"were growing more frequent as it was understood that the patient was likely to be convalescent before many days had passed.
If it should come to be understood that there was a deadly obstacle to their coming into any personal relations with him,the doctor had his doubts whether there were not those who would subject him to the risk;for there were coquettes in the village,--strangers,visitors,let us hope,--who would sacrifice anything or anybody to their vanity and love of conquest.