The Secret Places of the Heart by H. G. Wells Read Free Book Online Page A

organized great business
developments. You might think that my time has been fairly well
filled without much philandering. And all the time, all the time, I've
been—about women—like a thirsty beast looking for water.... Always.
Always. All through my life."
    Dr. Martineau waited through another silence.
    "I was very grave about it at first. I married young. I married very
simply and purely. I was not one of those young men who sow a large crop
of wild oats. I was a fairly decent youth. It suddenly appeared to me
that a certain smiling and dainty girl could make herself into all the
goddesses of my dreams. I had but to win her and this miracle would
occur. Of course I forget now the exact things I thought and felt then,
but surely I had some such persuasion. Or why should I have married her?
My wife was seven years younger than myself,—a girl of twenty. She
was charming. She is charming. She is a wonderfully intelligent and
understanding woman. She has made a home for me—a delightful home. I am
one of those men who have no instinct for home making. I owe my home and
all the comfort and dignity of my life to her ability. I have no excuse
for any misbehaviour—so far as she is concerned. None at all. By
all the rules I should have been completely happy. But instead of my
marriage satisfying me, it presently released a storm of long-controlled
desires and imprisoned cravings. A voice within me became more and more
urgent. 'This will not do. This is not love. Where are your goddesses?
This is not love.'... And I was unfaithful to my wife within four years
of my marriage. It was a sudden overpowering impulse. But I suppose the
ground had been preparing for a long time. I forget now all the emotions
of that adventure. I suppose at the time it seemed beautiful and
wonderful.... I do not excuse myself. Still less do I condemn myself. I
put the facts before you. So it was."
    "There were no children by your marriage?"
    "Your line of thought, doctor, is too philoprogenitive. We have had
three. My daughter was married two years ago. She is in America. One
little boy died when he was three. The other is in India, taking up the
Mardipore power scheme again now that he is out of the army.... No, it
is simply that I was hopelessly disappointed with everything that a
good woman and a decent marriage had to give me. Pure disappointment and
vexation. The anti-climax to an immense expectation built up throughout
an imaginative boyhood and youth and early manhood. I was shocked
and ashamed at my own disappointment. I thought it mean and base.
Nevertheless this orderly household into which I had placed my life,
these almost methodical connubialities...."
    He broke off in mid-sentence.
    Dr. Martineau shook his head disapprovingly.
    "No," he said, "it wasn't fair to your wife."
    "It was shockingly unfair. I have always realized that. I've done what
I could to make things up to her.... Heaven knows what counter
disappointments she has concealed.... But it is no good arguing about
rights and wrongs now. This is not an apology for my life. I am telling
you what happened.
    "Not for me to judge," said Dr. Martineau. "Go on."
    "By marrying I had got nothing that my soul craved for, I had satisfied
none but the most transitory desires and I had incurred a tremendous
obligation. That obligation didn't restrain me from making desperate
lunges at something vaguely beautiful that I felt was necessary to me;
but it did cramp and limit these lunges. So my story flops down into the
comedy of the lying, cramped intrigues of a respectable, married man...I
was still driven by my dream of some extravagantly beautiful inspiration
called love and I sought it like an area sneak. Gods! What a story it
is when one brings it all together! I couldn't believe that the glow and
sweetness I dreamt of were not in the world—somewhere. Hidden away
from me. I seemed to catch glimpses of the dear lost thing, now in the
corners of a smiling mouth, now in dark eyes beneath a