What Is in Bluebeard's Chamber?

THERE are people whom one sometimes meets on the street who, when they nod a recognition, or (if they belong to the on-hatpinned sex) take off their hats, seem at the moment of greeting to open wide a hospitable door, and to be saying in a smile without words, ‘ I know you have n’t time to-day to come into the house where my personality lives; but at least I want you to understand that, for you, the latchstring is always out.’

More familiar, alas, than this unspoken greeting, is the grudging sign of recognition bestowed upon us by certain of our acquaintance, as if the personality hidden inside the house of flesh and blood were peeking distrustfully through the windows of the eyes, instead of opening a smiling door of welcome; and that, by the lowering of eyelids, the shades had been hastily pulled down, lest a passer-by might think one’s personality too accessible.

The policy of the open door, as symbolized by lips parted in a hospitable smile, has suggested to me a harmless diversion which perhaps others who are interested in human nature may like to share. It consists in going over a list of my acquaintances, and deciding just how much of the house of Individuality they throw open.

There are certain New Englanders — and others — who seem always to leave us in the outer vestibule of their good graces; and although they occasionally permit us to ‘ be seated’ in the receptionrooms of their minds, we are almost never invited to the intimacy of a heartto-heart talk before the fire of real friendliness. But these inexpressive, yet perfectly well-intentioned, natures should not be confused with genuinely inhospitable persons who, from behind shuttered casements on the top floor of their own superiority, glower at all who venture beyond the ‘No Admittance’ signs that appear on every hand.

Of course, we all know the delightful type of person who, with great cordiality of manner, rushes to her front door — metaphorically speaking — and invites us to come in and have a chat. Immediately we find ourselves sitting on her pleasant piazza, with chairs pulled up to a cozy neighborliness, and, before we know it, her sympathy of manner beguiles us into talking about ourselves, or about impersonal matters — but never about herself. The conversation does not flag; we leave her with a warm hand-clasp, and a pleasant, flow of friendliness surges around our hearts. It is only when we go down the steps that we realize that we have not crossed the threshold of her personality.

Then we all know and admire that best type of the Woman of the World, whose conventionally perfect manners make you feel that you are being received in a drawing-room, tastefully and luxuriously furnished, where the right thing is always said, and the correct thing is always done. This hostess never takes you into a less formal apartment, yet her gracious bearing does not allow you to feel that she is holding you off. A sense of the social fitness of things governs her actions. The salon is the room for social intercourse, and more domestic doors are closed. The conversational coinage used by hostess and guest is the same, and neither party gains or loses by the exchange of mutual confidences which are only skin-deep. Perhaps sometimes her wellmodulated voice drops to a less formal pitch, and a soft silken portière seems to swing gently aside, revealing a vista of an inner room, with books and photographs, and other symbols of the daily life, of this finished hostess.

Then there are other persons with whom we may be no more intimate, who — when they see us approaching the house of their ego — fling open all visible doors, welcome us in, light, a fire in the cozy sitting-room, turn switches that illuminate the entire house, and, with truly Spanish hospitality, make us feel that the mansion and everything in it is ours. Yet even here we are conscious that there are hidden doors.

Of course, in all personalities there are att ics and cellars, filled with private relics and personal rubbish — storerooms of memories, where angels, fools, and even int imate friends should fear to tread. The Skeleton in the Closet is apt to be a family skeleton, whose presence is recognized, and whose precincts are visited and dusted out, from time to time by the relatives of the deceased. And if we sometimes, as privileged friends, come down from someone else’s attic, or up from someone else’s cellar, we feel a little like housebreakers, even if we have been admitted by the key of a confiding member of the family.

But there is still — thank Heaven for it! — one small locked door in the centre of every personality, and to that Bluebeard’s Chamber the key should never be given, although the room is not necessarily decorated with one’s dead wives, nor even inevitably paved with good intentions. If a psychoanalyst should get hold of this key, he should obtain it only over the hypnotized body of poor Bluebeard, who certainly has a right to this one small closet, of absolute privacy. For in this chamber one does not put away one’s treasures or one’s trash — it contains no cherished memories, no lost illusions, no broken ideals. Behind that black curtain of mystery lies hidden the answer to the riddle of each individual life; perhaps it has to do with a twist of temperament, a handicap of heredity, a circumstance — fortunate or calamitous — of environment.

The attempt to guess the riddle of our neighbor’s character is one of the chief entertainments of social life; but we are not playing the game fairly if we make use of the key, however obtained, to sec if our solution of the mystery be correct. The answer to a riddle is almost always a disappointment; it is the attempt to guess it that is amusing.

In one of Chesterton’s books there is a man of mystery who never removes from his face a pair of enormous and perfectly black glasses, which totally conceal his eyes and all the lines of expression around them. It is imagined, from the circumstantial evidence of his other features, that, if his eyes were revealed, the horror of their evil light would blast all who looked upon them. The Chestertonian truth is that, when the man does remove his spectacles, they are found to conceal blue eyes of childlike simplicity and innocence!

Does the Bluebeard’s Chamber of our neighbor really contain the bodies of his victims? Is it a vault containing sepulchres of whitening bones, over which he malevolently gloats when he is alone? Is his secret room, perchance, hung with mirrors, that he may know himself from every angle, as he stands alone with his own soul? Does he retire to a cold, bleak, barren place, which exists only that, people may wonder what it contains and never guess the blighting truth that it is empty?

Docs Bluebeard’s Chamber, perchance, contain a shrine? Is it a chapel to which he retires for prayer? To these speculations we have no right to know the answer. We have only the eternal pleasure of guessing. But Life gives us a hint, when she reminds us that Human Nature is as much ashamed of its hidden virtues as of its secret vices. So the answer to the riddle of ‘What is in Bluebeard’s Chamber?’ is the same as the answer to the Mad Hatter’s famous conundrum, ‘Why is a raven like a writing-desk?’ — ‘I have n’t the slightest idea!’