Speaker 1: This is section thirty nine of The Gilded Age. This
Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Gilded Age,
Speaker 1: A Tailor to Day by Mark Twain and C. D. Warner,
Speaker 1: Chapter thirty nine. Colonel Selby had just come to Washington
Speaker 1: and taken lodgings in Georgetown. His business was to get
Speaker 1: pay for some cotton that was destroyed during the war.
Speaker 1: There were many others in Washington on the same errand
Speaker 1: some of them with claims as difficult to establish as his.
Speaker 1: A concert of action was necessary, and he was not
Speaker 1: therefore at all surprise to receive the note from a
Speaker 1: lady asking him to call at Senator Dilworthy's at a
Speaker 1: little after three on Wednesday. He rang the bell of
Speaker 1: the Senator's residence. It was a handsome mansion on the
Speaker 1: square opposite the President's house. The owner must be a
Speaker 1: man of great wealth, the colonel thought, perhaps, who knows,
Speaker 1: said he with a smile. He may have got some
Speaker 1: of my cotton in exchange for salt and quinine after
Speaker 1: the capture of New Orleans. As this thought passed through
Speaker 1: his mind, he was looking at the remarkable figure of
Speaker 1: the Hero of New Orleans holding itself by main strength
Speaker 1: from sliding off the back of the rearing bronze horse
Speaker 1: and lifting its hat in the manner of one who
Speaker 1: acknowledges the playing of that martial air. See the conquering
Speaker 1: hero comes gad, said the colonel to himself. Old Hickory
Speaker 1: ought to get down and give his seat to General Sutler,
Speaker 1: but they'd have to tie him on. Laura was in
Speaker 1: the drawing room. She heard the bell, She heard the
Speaker 1: steps in the hall, and the emphatic thud of the
Speaker 1: supporting cane. She had risen from her chair and was
Speaker 1: leaning against the piano, pressing her left hand against the
Speaker 1: violent beating of her heart. The door opened and the
Speaker 1: Colonel entered, standing in the full light of the opposite window.
Speaker 1: Laura was more in the shadow and stood for an instant,
Speaker 1: long enough for the Colonel to make the inward observation
Speaker 1: that she was a magnificent woman. Then advanced a step,
Speaker 1: Colonel Selby, is it not? The colonel staggered back, caught
Speaker 1: himself by a chair, and turned toward her a look
Speaker 1: of terror. Laura, my god, yes, your wife. Oh no,
Speaker 1: it can't be. How came you here? I thought you
Speaker 1: were You thought I was dead? You thought you were
Speaker 1: rid of me. Not so long as you live, Colonel Selby,
Speaker 1: Not so long as you live. Laura, in her passion,
Speaker 1: was hurried on to say, no man had ever accused
Speaker 1: Colonel Selby of cowardice. But he was a coward before
Speaker 1: this woman. Maybe he was not the man he once was.
Speaker 1: Where was his coolness? Where was his sneering, imperturbable manner
Speaker 1: with which he could have met and would have met,
Speaker 1: any woman he had wronged if he had only been forewarned?
Speaker 1: He felt now that he must temporize, that he must
Speaker 1: gain time. There was danger in Laura's tone, there was
Speaker 1: something frightful in her calmness. Her set eyes seemed to
Speaker 1: devour him. You have ruined my life, she said. And
Speaker 1: I was so young, so ignorant, and loved you, so
Speaker 1: you betrayed me and left me, mocking me and trampling
Speaker 1: me into the dust, a soiled cast off. You might
Speaker 1: better have killed me, then, then I should not have
Speaker 1: hated you, Laura, said the colonel, nerving himself but still
Speaker 1: pale and speaking appealingly. Don't say that reproach me. I
Speaker 1: deserve it. I was a scoundrel, I was everything monstrous,
Speaker 1: But your beauty made me crazy. You are right, I
Speaker 1: was a brute in leaving you as I did. But
Speaker 1: what could I do? I was married, and and your
Speaker 1: wife still lives, asked Laura, bending a little forward in
Speaker 1: her eagerness. The colonel noticed the action, and he almost
Speaker 1: said no, but he thought of the folly of attempting concealment. Yes,
Speaker 1: she is here. What little color had wandered back into
Speaker 1: Laura's face forsook it again. Her heart stood still, her
Speaker 1: strength seemed going from her limbs, her last hope was gone.
Speaker 1: The room swam before her for a moment, and the
Speaker 1: colonel stepped towards her, but she waved him back as
Speaker 1: hot anger again coursed through her veins, and said, and
Speaker 1: you dare come with her here and tell me of
Speaker 1: it here, and mock me with it. And you think
Speaker 1: I will have it, George, You think I will let
Speaker 1: you live with that woman. You think I am as
Speaker 1: powerless as that day I fell dead at your feet,
Speaker 1: she raged. Now she was in a tempest of excitement,
Speaker 1: and she advanced towards him with a threatening mien. She
Speaker 1: would kill him if she could, thought the colonel. But
Speaker 1: he thought at the same moment how beautiful she is,
Speaker 1: He had recovered his head. Now she was lovely when
Speaker 1: he knew her, then, a simple country girl. Now she
Speaker 1: was dazzling in the fullness of her ripe womanhood, a
Speaker 1: superb creature, with all the fascination that a woman of
Speaker 1: the world has. For such a man as Colonel Selby,
Speaker 1: nothing of this was lost on him. He stepped quickly
Speaker 1: to her, crasped both her hands in his, and said, Laura,
Speaker 1: stop think. Suppose I loved you, yet suppose I hated
Speaker 1: my fate. What can I do? I am broken by
Speaker 1: the war. I have lost everything almost I had as
Speaker 1: lief be dead and done with it. The colonel spoke
Speaker 1: with a low, remembered voice that thrilled through Laura. He
Speaker 1: was looking into her eyes as he had looked in
Speaker 1: those old days when no birds of all those that
Speaker 1: sang in the groves where they walked, sang a note
Speaker 1: of warning. He was wounded, he had been punished. Her
Speaker 1: strength forsook her with her rage, and she sank upon
Speaker 1: a chair, sobbing. Oh my God, I thought I hated him.
Speaker 1: The colonel knelt beside her. He took her hand, and
Speaker 1: she let him keep it. She looked down into his
Speaker 1: face with a pitiable tenderness, and said, in a weak voice,
Speaker 1: and do you love me a little? The colonel vowed
Speaker 1: and protested. He kissed her hand and her lips. He
Speaker 1: swore his false soul into perdition. She wanted love, this
Speaker 1: woman was not her love for George Selby deeper than
Speaker 1: any other woman's could be. Had she not a right
Speaker 1: to him? Did he not belong to her by virtue
Speaker 1: of her overmastering passion his wife? She was not his
Speaker 1: wife except by the law. She could not be. Even
Speaker 1: with the law, she could have no right to stand
Speaker 1: between two souls that were one. It was an infamous
Speaker 1: condition in society that George should be tied to her.
Speaker 1: Laura thought this, believed it because she desired to believe it.
Speaker 1: She came to it as an original proposition, founded on
Speaker 1: the requirements of her own nature. She may have heard,
Speaker 1: doubtless she had similar theories that were prevalent at that day,
Speaker 1: theories of the tyranny of marriage and of the freedom
Speaker 1: of marriage. She had even heard women lecturers say that
Speaker 1: marriage should only can continue so long as it pleased
Speaker 1: either party to it, for a year, or a month
Speaker 1: or a day. She had not given much heed to this,
Speaker 1: but she saw its justice now in a dash of
Speaker 1: revealing desire. It must be right. God would not have
Speaker 1: permitted her to love George Selby as she did, and
Speaker 1: him to love her if it was right for society
Speaker 1: to raise up a barrier between them. He belonged to her,
Speaker 1: had he not confessed it himself. Not even the religious
Speaker 1: atmosphere of Senator Dilworthy's house had been sufficient to instill
Speaker 1: into Laura that deep Christian principle which had been somehow
Speaker 1: omitted in her training. Indeed, in that very house, had
Speaker 1: she not heard women prominent before the country and besieging
Speaker 1: Congress utter sentiments that fully justified the course she was
Speaker 1: marking out for herself. They were seated now, side by side,
Speaker 1: talking with more calmness. Laura was happy, or thought she was.
Speaker 1: But it was that feverish sort of happiness which is
Speaker 1: snatched out of the black shadow of falsehood, and is
Speaker 1: at the moment recognized as fleeting and perilous and indulged tremblingly.
Speaker 1: She loved, She was loved that his happiness, certainly, and
Speaker 1: the black passed, and the troubled present and the uncertain
Speaker 1: future could not snatch that from her? What did they
Speaker 1: say as they sat there? What nothings do people usually
Speaker 1: say in such circumstances, even if they are threescore and ten?
Speaker 1: It was enough for Laura to hear his voice and
Speaker 1: be near him. It was enough for him to be
Speaker 1: near her and avoid committing himself as much as he could.
Speaker 1: Enough for him was the present? Also? Had there not
Speaker 1: always been some way out of such scrapes? And yet
Speaker 1: Laura could not be quite content without prying into tomorrow?
Speaker 1: How could the colonel manage to free himself from his wife?
Speaker 1: Would it be long? Could he not go into some
Speaker 1: state where it would not take much time? He could
Speaker 1: not say exactly that they must think of, that they
Speaker 1: must talk over, and so on? Did this seem like
Speaker 1: a damnable plot to Laura against the life maybe of
Speaker 1: a sister, a woman like herself? Probably not. It was
Speaker 1: right that this man should be hers, and there were
Speaker 1: some obstacles in the way, That was all. There are
Speaker 1: as good reasons for bad actions as for good ones,
Speaker 1: to those who commit them. When one has broken the
Speaker 1: tenth commandment, the others are not of much account. Was
Speaker 1: it unnatural therefore, that when George Selby departed, Laura should
Speaker 1: watch him from the window with an almost joyful heart
Speaker 1: as he went down the sunny square. I shall see
Speaker 1: him tomorrow, she said, and the next day and the next.
Speaker 1: He is mine now, damn the woman, said the colonel
Speaker 1: as he picked his way down the steps. Or he added,
Speaker 1: as his thoughts took a new turn. I wish my
Speaker 1: wife was in New Orleans. End of chapter thirty nine.