The Mill on the Floss

by George Eliot

  Chapter III

  The Wavering Balance

  I said that Maggie went home that evening from the Red Deeps with amental conflict already begun. You have seen clearly enough, in herinterview with Philip, what that conflict was. Here suddenly was anopening in the rocky wall which shut in the narrow valley ofhumiliation, where all her prospect was the remote, unfathomed sky;and some of the memory-haunting earthly delights were no longer out ofher reach. She might have books, converse, affection she might heartidings of the world from which her mind had not yet lost its sense ofexile; and it would be a kindness to Philip too, who waspitiable,--clearly not happy. And perhaps here was an opportunityindicated for making her mind more worthy of its highest service;perhaps the noblest, completest devoutness could hardly exist withoutsome width of knowledge; _must_ she always live in this resignedimprisonment? It was so blameless, so good a thing that there shouldbe friendship between her and Philip; the motives that forbade it wereso unreasonable, so unchristian! But the severe monotonous warningcame again and again,--that she was losing the simplicity andclearness of her life by admitting a ground of concealment; and that,by forsaking the simple rule of renunciation, she was throwing herselfunder the seductive guidance of illimitable wants. She thought she hadwon strength to obey the warning before she allowed herself the nextweek to turn her steps in the evening to the Red Deeps. But while shewas resolved to say an affectionate farewell to Philip, how she lookedforward to that evening walk in the still, fleckered shade of thehollows, away from all that was harsh and unlovely; to theaffectionate, admiring looks that would meet her; to the sense ofcomradeship that childish memories would give to wiser, older talk; tothe certainty that Philip would care to hear everything she said,which no one else cared for! It was a half-hour that it would be veryhard to turn her back upon, with the sense that there would be noother like it. Yet she said what she meant to say; she looked firm aswell as sad.

  "Philip, I have made up my mind; it is right that we should give eachother up, in everything but memory. I could not see you withoutconcealment--stay, I know what you are going to say,--it is otherpeople's wrong feelings that make concealment necessary; butconcealment is bad, however it may be caused. I feel that it would bebad for me, for us both. And then, if our secret were discovered,there would be nothing but misery,--dreadful anger; and then we mustpart after all, and it would be harder, when we were used to seeingeach other."

  Philip's face had flushed, and there was a momentary eagerness ofexpression, as if he had been about to resist this decision with allhis might.

  But he controlled himself, and said, with assumed calmness: "Well,Maggie, if we must part, let us try and forget it for one half hour;let us talk together a little while, for the last time."

  He took her hand, and Maggie felt no reason to withdraw it; hisquietness made her all the more sure she had given him great pain, andshe wanted to show him how unwillingly she had given it. They walkedtogether hand in hand in silence.

  "Let us sit down in the hollow," said Philip, "where we stood the lasttime. See how the dog-roses have strewed the ground, and spread theiropal petals over it."

  They sat down at the roots of the slanting ash.

  "I've begun my picture of you among the Scotch firs, Maggie," saidPhilip, "so you must let me study your face a little, while youstay,--since I am not to see it again. Please turn your head thisway."

  This was said in an entreating voice, and it would have been very hardof Maggie to refuse. The full, lustrous face, with the bright blackcoronet, looked down like that of a divinity well pleased to beworshipped, on the pale-hued, small-featured face that was turned upto it.

  "I shall be sitting for my second portrait then," she said, smiling."Will it be larger than the other?"

  "Oh yes, much larger. It is an oil-painting. You will look like a tallHamadryad, dark and strong and noble, just issued from one of thefir-trees, when the stems are casting their afternoon shadows on thegrass."

  "You seem to think more of painting than of anything now, Philip?"

  "Perhaps I do," said Philip, rather sadly; "but I think of too manythings,--sow all sorts of seeds, and get no great harvest from any oneof them. I'm cursed with susceptibility in every direction, andeffective faculty in none. I care for painting and music; I care forclassic literature, and mediaeval literature, and modern literature; Iflutter all ways, and fly in none."

  "But surely that is a happiness to have so many tastes,--to enjoy somany beautiful things, when they are within your reach," said Maggie,musingly. "It always seemed to me a sort of clever stupidity only tohave one sort of talent,--almost like a carrier-pigeon."

  "It might be a happiness to have many tastes if I were like othermen," said Philip, bitterly. "I might get some power and distinctionby mere mediocrity, as they do; at least I should get those middlingsatisfactions which make men contented to do without great ones. Imight think society at St. Ogg's agreeable then. But nothing couldmake life worth the purchase-money of pain to me, but some facultythat would lift me above the dead level of provincial existence. Yes,there is one thing,--a passion answers as well as a faculty."

  Maggie did not hear the last words; she was struggling against theconsciousness that Philip's words had set her own discontent vibratingagain as it used to do.

  "I understand what you mean," she said, "though I know so much lessthan you do. I used to think I could never bear life if it kept onbeing the same every day, and I must always be doing things of noconsequence, and never know anything greater. But, dear Philip, Ithink we are only like children that some one who is wiser is takingcare of. Is it not right to resign ourselves entirely, whatever may bedenied us? I have found great peace in that for the last two or threeyears, even joy in subduing my own will."

  "Yes, Maggie," said Philip, vehemently; "and you are shutting yourselfup in a narrow, self-delusive fanaticism, which is only a way ofescaping pain by starving into dulness all the highest powers of yournature. Joy and peace are not resignation resignation is the willingendurance of a pain that is not allayed, that you don't expect to beallayed. Stupefaction is not resignation and it is stupefaction toremain in ignorance,--to shut up all the avenues by which the life ofyour fellow-men might become known to you. I am not resigned; I am notsure that life is long enough to learn that lesson. _You_ are notresigned; you are only trying to stupefy yourself."

  Maggie's lips trembled; she felt there was some truth in what Philipsaid, and yet there was a deeper consciousness that, for any immediateapplication it had to her conduct, it was no better than falsity. Herdouble impression corresponded to the double impulse of the speaker.Philip seriously believed what he said, but he said it with vehemencebecause it made an argument against the resolution that opposed hiswishes. But Maggie's face, made more childlike by the gathering tears,touched him with a tenderer, less egotistic feeling. He took her handand said gently:

  "Don't let us think of such things in this short half-hour, Maggie. Letus only care about being together. We shall be friends in spite ofseparation. We shall always think of each other. I shall be glad tolive as long as you are alive, because I shall think there may alwayscome a time when I can--when you will let me help you in some way."

  "What a dear, good brother you would have been, Philip," said Maggie,smiling through the haze of tears. "I think you would have made asmuch fuss about me, and been as pleased for me to love you, as wouldhave satisfied even me. You would have loved me well enough to bearwith me, and forgive me everything. That was what I always longed thatTom should do. I was never satisfied with a _little_ of anything. Thatis why it is better for me to do without earthly happiness altogether.I never felt that I had enough music,--I wanted more instrumentsplaying together; I wanted voices to be fuller and deeper. Do you eversing now, Philip?" she added abruptly, as if she had forgotten whatwent before.

  "Yes," he said, "every day, almost. But my voice is only middling,like everything else in me."

  "Oh, sing me something,--just one song. I _may
_ listen to that beforeI go,--something you used to sing at Lorton on a Saturday afternoon,when we had the drawing-room all to ourselves, and I put my apron overmy head to listen."

  "_I_ know," said Philip; and Maggie buried her face in her hands whilehe sang _sotto voce_, "Love in her eyes sits playing," and then said,"That's it, isn't it?"

  "Oh no, I won't stay," said Maggie, starting up. "It will only hauntme. Let us walk, Philip. I must go home."

  She moved away, so that he was obliged to rise and follow her.

  "Maggie," he said, in a tone of remonstrance, "don't persist in thiswilful, senseless privation. It makes me wretched to see you benumbingand cramping your nature in this way. You were so full of life whenyou were a child; I thought you would be a brilliant woman,--all witand bright imagination. And it flashes out in your face still, untilyou draw that veil of dull quiescence over it."

  "Why do you speak so bitterly to me, Philip?" said Maggie.

  "Because I foresee it will not end well; you can never carry on thisself-torture."

  "I shall have strength given me," said Maggie, tremulously.

  "No, you will not, Maggie; no one has strength given to do what isunnatural. It is mere cowardice to seek safety in negations. Nocharacter becomes strong in that way. You will be thrown into theworld some day, and then every rational satisfaction of your naturethat you deny now will assault you like a savage appetite."

  Maggie started and paused, looking at Philip with alarm in her face.

  "Philip, how dare you shake me in this way? You are a tempter."

  "No, I am not; but love gives insight, Maggie, and insight often givesforeboding. _Listen_ to me,--let _me_ supply you with books; do let mesee you sometimes,--be your brother and teacher, as you said atLorton. It is less wrong that you should see me than that you shouldbe committing this long suicide."

  Maggie felt unable to speak. She shook her head and walked on insilence, till they came to the end of the Scotch firs, and she put outher hand in sign of parting.

  "Do you banish me from this place forever, then, Maggie? Surely I maycome and walk in it sometimes? If I meet you by chance, there is noconcealment in that?"

  It is the moment when our resolution seems about to becomeirrevocable--when the fatal iron gates are about to close uponus--that tests our strength. Then, after hours of clear reasoning andfirm conviction, we snatch at any sophistry that will nullify our longstruggles, and bring us the defeat that we love better than victory.

  Maggie felt her heart leap at this subterfuge of Philip's, and therepassed over her face that almost imperceptible shock which accompaniesany relief. He saw it, and they parted in silence.

  Philip's sense of the situation was too complete for him not to bevisited with glancing fears lest he had been intervening toopresumptuously in the action of Maggie's conscience, perhaps for aselfish end. But no!--he persuaded himself his end was not selfish. Hehad little hope that Maggie would ever return the strong feeling hehad for her; and it must be better for Maggie's future life, whenthese petty family obstacles to her freedom had disappeared, that thepresent should not be entirely sacrificed, and that she should havesome opportunity of culture,--some interchange with a mind above thevulgar level of those she was now condemned to live with. If we onlylook far enough off for the consequence of our actions, we can alwaysfind some point in the combination of results by which those actionscan be justified; by adopting the point of view of a Providence whoarranges results, or of a philosopher who traces them, we shall findit possible to obtain perfect complacency in choosing to do what ismost agreeable to us in the present moment. And it was in this waythat Philip justified his subtle efforts to overcome Maggie's trueprompting against a concealment that would introduce doubleness intoher own mind, and might cause new misery to those who had the primarynatural claim on her. But there was a surplus of passion in him thatmade him half independent of justifying motives. His longing to seeMaggie, and make an element in her life, had in it some of that savageimpulse to snatch an offered joy which springs from a life in whichthe mental and bodily constitution have made pain predominate. He hadnot his full share in the common good of men; he could not even passmuster with the insignificant, but must be singled out for pity, andexcepted from what was a matter of course with others. Even to Maggiehe was an exception it was clear that the thought of his being herlover had never entered her mind.

  Do not think too hardly of Philip. Ugly and deformed people have greatneed of unusual virtues, because they are likely to be extremelyuncomfortable without them; but the theory that unusual virtues springby a direct consequence out of personal disadvantages, as animals getthicker wool in severe climates, is perhaps a little overstrained. Thetemptations of beauty are much dwelt upon, but I fancy they only bearthe same relation to those of ugliness, as the temptation to excess ata feast, where the delights are varied for eye and ear as well aspalate, bears to the temptations that assail the desperation ofhunger. Does not the Hunger Tower stand as the type of the utmosttrial to what is human in us?

  Philip had never been soothed by that mother's love which flows out tous in the greater abundance because our need is greater, which clingsto us the more tenderly because we are the less likely to be winnersin the game of life; and the sense of his father's affection andindulgence toward him was marred by the keener perception of hisfather's faults. Kept aloof from all practical life as Philip hadbeen, and by nature half feminine in sensitiveness, he had some of thewoman's intolerant repulsion toward worldliness and the deliberatepursuit of sensual enjoyment; and this one strong natural tie in hislife,--his relation as a son,--was like an aching limb to him. Perhapsthere is inevitably something morbid in a human being who is in anyway unfavorably excepted from ordinary conditions, until the goodforce has had time to triumph; and it has rarely had time for that attwo-and-twenty. That force was present in Philip in much strength, butthe sun himself looks feeble through the morning mists.