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1907
I feel now, when my "Three Weeks" is to be launched in a new land,where I have many sympathetic friends, that, owing to themisunderstanding and misrepresentation it received from nearly theentire press and a section of the public in England, I would like tostate my view of its meaning. (As I wrote it, I suppose it could bebelieved I know something about that!) For me "the Lady" was a deepstudy, the analysis of a strange Slav nature, who, from circumstancesand education and her general view of life, was beyond the ordinarylaws of morality. If I were making the study of a Tiger, I would notgive it the attributes of a spaniel, because the public, and I myself,might prefer a spaniel! I would still seek to portray accuratelyevery minute instinct of that Tiger, to make a living picture. Thus,as you read, I want you to think of her as such a study. A greatsplendid nature, full of the passionate realisation of primitiveinstincts, immensely cultivated, polished, blasé. You must see her atLucerne, obsessed with the knowledge of her horrible life with herbrutal, vicious husband, to whom she had been sacrificed for politicalreasons when almost a child. She suddenly sees this young Englishman,who comes as an echo of something straight and true in manhood which,in outward appearance at all events, she has met in her youth in theperson of his Uncle Hubert. She perceives in him at once the Soulsleeping there; and it produces in her a strong emotion. Then I wantyou to understand the effect of Love on them both. In her it rose fromcaprice to intense devotion, until the day at the Farm when it reachedthe highest point—a desire to reproduce his likeness. How, with themost passionate physical emotion, her mental influence upon Paul wasever to raise him to vast aims and noble desires for futuregreatness. In him love opened the windows of his Soul, so that he sawthe fine in everything.
The immense rush of passion in Venice came from her knowledge thatthey soon must part. Notice the effect of the two griefs on Paul. Thefirst, with its undefined hope, making him do well in all things—evenhis prowess as a hunter—to raise himself to be more worthy in hereyes; the second and paralysing one of death, turning him into adamantuntil his soul awakens again with the returning spring of her spiritin his heart, and the consolation of the living essence of their lovein the child.
The minds of some human beings are as moles, grubbing in the earth forworms. They have no eyes to see God's sky with the stars in it. Tosuch "Three Weeks" will be but a sensual record of passion. But thosewho do look up beyond the material will understand the deep pure love,and the Soul in it all, and they will realise that to such a nature as"the Lady's," passion would never have run riot until it wassated—she would have daily grown nobler in her desire to make herLoved One's son a splendid man.
And to all who read, I say—at least be just! and do not skip. No lineis written without its having a bearing upon the next, and in itssmall scope helping to make the presentment of these two human beingsvivid and clear.
The verdict I must leave to the Public, but now, at all events, youknow, kind Reader, that to me, the "Imperatorskoye" appears anoble woman, because she was absolutely faithful to the man she hadselected as her mate, through the one motive which makes a union moralin ethics—Love.—ELINOR GLYN.