from what
inexpressible degradation God in His mercy has saved them, at least
saved him; let her realise that he wanted only carnal indulgence, and
would have got it, if need be, through threats and blows. He recognises,
in his past, only a feeling which, now it is over, fills his ascetic
mind with nothing but disgust and burning shame, and hence he tries, by
degrading it still more, by cynically raking up all imaginable filth,
to separate that past from his present. So far, were only he himself
concerned, one would sympathise, though contemptuously, with this
agonised reaction of a proud, perhaps a vain, _man_ of mere intellect.
But the atrocious thing is, that he treats her as a loathsome relic of
this past dishonour; and answers her prayer (after twelve years'
silence!) for a word of loving-kindness by elaborate denunciations of
their former love, and reiterated jubilations that _he_, at least, has
long been purged thereof; not unmixed with sharp admonishment that she
had better not try to infect his soul afresh, but set about, if needful,
cleansing her own. Now it so happens that what he would cure her of is
incurable, being, in fact, eternal, divine--simple human love. So, to
his pious and cynical admonitions she answers with strange inconsistency.
Long brooding over his taunts will sometimes make her, to whom he is
always the divinity, actually believe, despite her reiteration, that
she had sinned out of obedience to him, that she really is a polluted
creature, guilty of the unutterable crime of contaminating a man of God,
nay, a god himself. And then, unable to silence affection, she cries
out in agony at the perversity of her nature, incapable even of hating
sincerely its sinfulness; for would she not do it again, is she not the
same Heloise who would have left the very altar, the very communion with
Christ, at Abelard's word? At other times she is pious, resigned, almost
serene; for is that not Abelard's wish? a careful mother to her nuns.
But when, encouraged by her docility and blind to her undying love,
Abelard believes that he has succeeded in quieting her down, and rewards
her piety by some rhetorical phrase of Monkish eulogy, she suddenly
turns round, a terrible tragic figure. She repudiates the supposed
purity and piety, blazons out her wickedness and hypocrisy, and cries
out, partly with the horror of the sacrilegious nun, mainly with the
pride of the faithful wife, that it is not God she loves but Abelar