A violent reaction set in; she no longer attended to the cows and calves, but remained in the house. There she sat, hatching fresh plots.
But the husband had regained a fresh hold on life. He took an eager interest in the estate and woke up the people. Now he held the reins; managed everything, gave orders and paid the bills.
One day his wife came into the office and asked him for a thousand crowns to buy a piano.
“What are you thinking of?” said the husband. “Just when we are going to re-build the stables! We haven’t the means to buy a piano.”
“What do you mean?” she replied. “Why haven’t we got the means? Isn’t my money sufficient?”
“Your money?”
“Yes, my money, my dowry.”
“That has now become the property of the family.”
“That is to say yours?”
“No, the family’s. The family is a small community, the only one which possesses common property which, as a rule, is administered by the husband.”
“Why should he administer it and not the wife?”
“Because he has more time to give to it, since he does not bear children.”
“Why couldn’t they administer it jointly?”
“For the same reason that a joint stock company has only one managing director. If the wife administered as well, the children would claim the same right, for it is their property, too.”
“This is mere hair-splitting. I think it’s hard that I should have to ask your permission to buy a piano out of my own money.”
“It’s no longer your money.”
“But yours?”
“No, not mine either, but the family’s. And you are wrong when you say that you ‘have to ask for my permission’; it’s merely wise that you should consult with the administrator as to whether the position of affairs warrants your spending such a large sum on a luxury.”
“Do you call a piano a luxury?”
“A new piano, when there is an old one, must be termed a luxury. The position of our affairs is anything but satisfactory, and therefore it doesn’t permit you to buy a new piano at present, butI, personally, can or will have nothing to say against it.”
“An expenditure of a thousand crowns doesn’t mean ruin.”
“To incur a debt of a thousand crowns at the wrong time may be the first step towards ruin.”
“All this means that you refuse to buy me a new piano?”
“No, I won’t say that. The uncertain position of affairs....”
“When, oh! when will the day dawn on which the wife will manage her own affairs and have no need to go begging to her husband?”
“When she works herself. A man, your father, has earned your money. The men have gained all the wealth there is in the world; therefore it is but just that a sister should inherit less than her brother, especially as the brother is born with the duty to provide for a woman, while the sister need not provide for a man. Do you understand?”
“And you call that justice? Can you honestly maintain that it is? Ought we not all to share and share alike?”
“No, not always. One ought to share according to circumstances and merit. The idler who lies in the grass and watches the mason building a house, should have a smaller share than the mason.”
“Do you mean to insinuate that I am lazy?”
“H’m! I’d rather not say anything about that. But when I used to lie on the sofa, reading, you considered me a loafer, and I well remember that you said something to that effect in very plain language.”
“But what am I to do?”
“Take the children out for walks.”
“I’m not constituted to look after the children.”
“But there was a time when I had to do it. Let me tell you that a woman who says that she is not constituted to look after children, isn’t a woman. But that fact doesn’t make a man of her, by any means. What is she, then?”
“Shame on you that you should speak like that of the mother of your children!”
“What does the world call a man who will have nothing to do with women? Isn’t it something very ugly?”
“I won’t hear another word!”
And she left him and locked herself into her room.
She fell ill. The doctor, the almighty man, who took over the care of the body when the priest lost the care of the soul, pronounced country air and solitude to be harmful.
They were obliged to return to town so that the wife could have proper medical treatment.
Town had a splendid effect on her health; the air of the slums gave colour to her cheeks.
The lawyer practised his profession and so husband and wife had found safety-valves for their temperaments which refused to blend.
Mr. Blackwood was a wharfinger at Brooklyn and had married Miss Dankward, who brought him a dowry of modern ideas. To avoid seeing his beloved wife playing the part of his servant, Mr. Blackwood had taken rooms in a boarding house.
The wife, who had nothing whatever to do, spent the day in playing billiards and practising the piano, and half the night in discussing Women’s Rights and drinking whiskies and sodas.
The husband had a salary of five thousand dollars. He handed over his money regularly to his wife who took charge of it. She had, moreover, a dress allowance of five hundred dollars with which she did as she liked.
Then a baby arrived. A nurse was engaged who, for a hundred dollars, took upon her shoulders the sacred duties of the mother.
Two more children were born.
They grew up and the two eldest went to school. But Mrs. Blackwood was bored and had nothing with which to occupy her mind.
One morning she appeared at the breakfast table, slightly intoxicated.
The husband ventured to tell her that her behaviour was unseemly.
She had hysterics and went to bed, and all the other ladies in the house called on her and brought her flowers.
“Why do you drink so much whisky?” asked her husband, as kindly as possible. “Is there anything which troubles you?”
“How could I be happy when my whole life is wasted!”
“What do you mean by wasted? You are the mother of three children and you might spend your time in educating them.”
“I can’t be bothered with children.”
“Then you ought to be bothered with them! You would be benefiting the whole community and have a splendid object in life, a far more honourable one, for instance, than that of being a wharfinger.”
“Yes, if I were free!”
“You are freer than I am. I am under your rule. You decide how my earnings are to be spent. You have five hundred dollars pin money to spend as you like; but I have no pin money. I have to make an application to the cash-box, in other words, to you, whenever I want to buy tobacco. Don’t you think that you are freer than I am?”
She made no reply; she tried to think the question out.
The upshot of it was that they decided to have a home of their own. And they set up house-keeping.
“My dear friend,” Mrs. Blackwood wrote a little later on to a friend of hers, “I am ill and tired to death. But I must go on suffering, for there is no solace for an unhappy woman who has no object in life. I will show the world that I am not the sort of woman who is content to live on her husband’s bounty, and therefore I shall work myself to death....”
On the first day she rose at nine o’clock and turned out her husband’s room. Then she dismissed the cook and at eleven o’clock she went out to do the catering for the day.
When the husband came home at one o’clock, lunch was not ready. It was the maid’s fault.
Mrs. Blackwood was dreadfully tired and in tears. The husband could not find it in his heart to complain. He ate a burnt cutlet and went back to his work.
“Don’t work so hard, darling,” he said, as he was leaving.
In the evening his wife was so tired that she could not finish her work and went to bed at ten o’clock.
On the following morning, as Mr. Blackwood went into his wife’s room to say good morning to her, he was amazed at her healthy complexion.
“Have you slept well?” he asked.
“Why do you ask?”
“Because you are looking so well.”
“I—am—looking—well?”
“Yes, a little occupation seems to agree with you.”
“A little occupation? You call it little? I should like to know what you would call much.”
“Never mind, I didn’t mean to annoy you.”
“Yes, you did. You meant to imply that I wasn’t working hard enough. And yet I turned out your room yesterday, just as if I were a house-maid, and stood in the kitchen like a cook. Can you deny that I am your servant?”
In going out the husband said to the maid:
“You had better get up at seven in future and do my room. Your mistress shouldn’t have to do your work.”
In the evening Mr. Blackwood came home in high spirits but his wife was angry with him.
“Why am I not to do your room?” she asked.
“Because I object to your being my servant.”
“Why do you object?”
“The thought of it makes me unhappy.”
“But it doesn’t make you unhappy to think of me cooking your dinner and attending to your children?”
This remark set him thinking.
He pondered the question during the whole of his tram journey to Brooklyn.
When he came home in the evening, he had done a good deal of thinking.
“Now, listen to me, my love,” he began, “I’ve thought a lot about your position in the house and, of course, I am far from wishing that you should be my servant. I think the best thing to do is this: You must look upon me as your boarder and I’ll pay for myself. Then you’ll be mistress in the house, and I’ll pay you for my dinner.”
“What do you mean?” asked his wife, a little uneasy.
“What I say. Let’s pretend that you keep a boarding-house and that I’m your boarder. We’ll only pretend it, of course.”
“Very well! And what are you going to pay me?”
“Enough to prevent me from being under an obligation to you. It will improve my position, too, for then I shall not feel that I am kept out of kindness.”
“Out of kindness?”
“Yes; you give me a dinner which is only half-cooked, and then you go on repeating that you are my servant, that is to say, that you are working yourself to death for me.”
“What are you driving at?”
“Is three dollars a day enough for my board? Any boarding-house will take me for two.”
“Three dollars ought to be plenty.”
“Very well! Let’s say a thousand dollars per annum. Here’s the money in advance!”
He laid a bill on the table.
It was made out as follows:
Rent 500 dollarsNurse’s wages 100 ”Cook’s wages 150 ”Wife’s maintenance 500 ”Wife’s pin money 500 ”Nurse’s maintenance 300 ”Cook’s maintenance 300 ”Children’s maintenance 700 ”Children’s clothes 500 ”Wood, light, assistance 500 ”4.500 dollars
“Divide this sum by two, since we share expenses equally, that leaves 2025 dollars. Deduct my thousand dollars and give me 1025 dollars. If you have got the money by you, all the better.”
“Share expenses equally?” was all the wife could say. “Do you expect me to pay you, then?”
“Yes, of course, if we are to be on a footing of equality. I pay for half of your and the children’s support. Or do you want me to pay the whole? Very well, that would mean that I should have to pay you 4050 dollars plus 1000 dollars for my board. But I pay separately for rent, food, light, wood and servants’ wages. What do I get for my three dollars a day for board? The preparation of the food? Nothing else but that for 4050 dollars? Now, if I subtract really half of this sum, that is to say, my share of the expenses, 2025 dollars, then the preparation of my food costs me 2025 dollars. But I have already paid the cook for doing it; how, then, can I be expected to pay 2025 dollars, plus 1000 dollars for food?”
“I don’t know.”
“Neither do I. But I know that I owe you nothing after paying for the whole of your support, the children’s support and the servants’ support; the servants who do your work, which, in your opinion, is equal, or superior, to mine. But even if your work should really be worth more, you must remember that you have another five hundred dollars in addition to the household expenses, while I have nothing.”
“I repeat that I don’t understand your figures!”
“Neither do I. Perhaps we had better abandon the idea of the boarding-house. Let’s put down the debit and credit of the establishment. Here’s the account, if you’d like to see it.”
To Mrs. Blackwood for assistance in the house, and to Mrs. Blackwood’scook and nursemaid:Rent and maintenance 1000 dollarsClothes 500 ”Amusements 100 ”Pin money (by cash) 500 ”Her children’s maintenance 1200 ”Her children’s education 600 ”On account of the maids who do herwork 850 ”4570 dollarsPaid M. Blackwood,Wharfinger
“Oh! It’s too bad of you to worry your wife with bills!”
“With counter-bills! And even that one you need not pay, for I pay all bills.”
The wife crumpled up the paper.
“Am I to pay for your children’s education, too?”
“No, I will, and I shall, and I will also pay for your children’s education. You shall not pay one single farthing for mine. Is that being on a footing of equality? But I shall deduct the sum for the maintenance of my children and servants: then you will still have 2100 dollars for the assistance you give to my servants. Do you want any more bills?”
She wanted no more; never again.
He wakes up in the morning from evil dreams of bills which have become due and copy which has not been delivered. His hair is damp with cold perspiration, and his cheeks tremble as he dresses himself. He listens to the chirruping of the children in the next room and plunges his burning face into cold water. He drinks the coffee which he has made himself, so as not to disturb the nursery maid at the early hour of eight o’clock. Then he makes his bed, brushes his clothes, and sits down to write.
The fever attacks him, the fever which is to create hallucinations of rooms he has never seen, landscapes which never existed, people whose names cannot be found in the directory. He sits at his writing table in mortal anguish. His thoughts must be clear, pregnant and picturesque, his writing legible, the story dramatic; the interest must never abate, the metaphors must be striking, the dialogue brilliant. The faces of those automata, the public, whose brains he is to wind up, are grinning at him; the critics whose good-will he must enlist, stare at him through the spectacles of envy; he is haunted by the gloomy face of the publisher, which it is his task to brighten. He sees the jurymen sitting round the black table in the centre of which lies a Bible; he hears the sound of the opening of prison doors behind which free-thinkers are suffering for the crime of having thought bold thoughts for the benefit of the sluggards; he listens to the noiseless footfall of the hotel porter who is coming with the bill....
And all the while the fever is raging and his pen flies, flies over the paper without a moment’s delay at the vision of publisher or jurymen, leaving in its track red lines as of congealed blood which slowly turn to black.
When he rises from his chair, after a couple of hours, he has only enough strength left to stumble across the room. He sinks down on his bed and lies there as if Death held him in his clutches. It is not invigorating sleep which has closed his eyes, but a stupor, a long fainting fit during which he remains conscious, tortured by the horrible thought that his strength is gone, his nervous system shattered, his brain empty.
A ring at the bell of the private hotel!Voilà le facteur! The mail has arrived.
He rouses himself and staggers out of his room. A pile of letters is handed to him. Proofs which must be read at once; a book from a young author, begging for a candid criticism: a paper containing a controversial article to which he must reply without delay, a request for a contribution to an almanac, an admonishing letter from his publisher. How can an invalid cope with it all?
In the meantime the children’s nurse has got up and dressed the children, drunk the coffee made for her in the hotel kitchen, and eaten the rolls spread with honey which have been sent up for her. After breakfast she takes a stroll in the park.
At one o’clock the bell rings for luncheon. All the guests are assembled in the dining-room. He, too, is there, sitting at the table by himself.
“Where is your wife?” he is asked on all sides.
“I don’t know,” he replies.
“What a brute!” is the comment of the ladies, who are still in their morning gowns.
The entrance of his wife interrupts the progress of the meal, and the hungry guests who have been punctual are kept waiting for the second course.
The ladies enquire anxiously whether his, wife has slept well and feels refreshed? Nobody asks him how he feels. There is no need to enquire.
“He looks like a corpse,” says one of the ladies.
And she is right.
“Dissipation,” says another.
But that is anything but true. He takes no part in the conversation, for he has nothing to say to these women. But his wife talks for two. While he swallows his food, his ears are made to listen to rich praise of all that is base, and vile abuse of all that is noble and good.
When luncheon is over he takes his wife aside.
“I wish you would send Louisa to the tailor’s with my coat; a seam has come undone and I haven’t the time to sew it up myself.”
She makes no reply, but instead of sending the coat by Louisa, she takes it herself and walks to the village where the tailor lives.
In the garden she meets some of her emancipated friends who ask her where she is going.
She replies, truthfully enough, that she is going to the tailor’s for her husband.
“Fancy sending her to the tailor’s! And she allows him to treat her like a servant!”
“While he is lying on the bed, taking an after-dinner nap! A nice husband!”
It is quite true, he is taking an after dinner nap, for he is suffering from anaemia.
At three o’clock the postman rings again; he is expected to answer a letter from Berlin in German, one from Paris in French, and one from London in English.
His wife, who has returned from the tailor’s and refreshed herself with a cognac, asks him whether he feels inclined to make an excursion with the children. No, he has letters to write.
When he has finished his letters, he goes out for a stroll before dinner. He is longing for somebody to talk to. But he is alone. He goes into the garden and looks for the children.
The stout nurse is sitting on a garden seat, reading Mrs. Leffler’sTrue Womenwhich his wife has lent her. The children are bored, they want to run about or go for a walk.
“Why don’t you take the children for a walk, Louisa?” he asks.
“Mistress said it was too hot.”
His wife’s orders!
He calls to the children and walks with them towards the high road; suddenly he notices that their hands and faces are dirty and their boots in holes.
“Why are the children allowed to wear such boots?” he asks Louisa.
“Mistress said....”
His wife said!
He goes for a walk by himself.
It is seven o’clock and dinner-time. The ladies have not yet returned to the hotel. The two first courses have been served when they arrive with flushed faces, talking and laughing loudly.
His wife and her friend are in high spirits and smell of cognac.
“What have you been doing with yourself all day, daddy?” she asks her husband.
“I went for a walk with the children.”
“Wasn’t Louisa there?”
“Oh! yes, but she was otherwise engaged.”
“Well, I don’t think it’s too much to ask of a man to keep an eye on his own children,” says the friend.
“No, of course not,” answers the husband. “And therefore I scolded Louisa for allowing the children to run about with dirty faces and worn-out boots.”
“I never come home but I am scolded,” says the wife; “You spoil every little pleasure I have with your fault-finding.”
And a tiny tear moistens her reddened eyelids. The friend and all the rest of the ladies cast indignant glances at the husband.
An attack is imminent and the friend sharpens her tongue.
“Has anybody here present read Luther’s views on the right of a woman?”
“What right is that?” asks his wife.
“To look out for another partner if she is dissatisfied with the one she has.”
There is a pause.
“A very risky doctrine as far as a woman’s interests are concerned,” says the husband, “for it follows that in similar circumstances a man is justified in doing the same thing. The latter happens much more frequently than the former.”
“I don’t understand what you mean,” says the wife.
“That’s neither Luther’s fault nor mine,” answers the husband. “Just as it is not necessarily the husband’s fault if he doesn’t get on with his wife. Possibly he would get on excellently with another woman.”
A dead silence follows; the diners rise from their chairs.
The husband retires to his own room. His wife and her friend leave the dining-room together and sit down in the pavilion.
“What brutality!” exclaims the friend. “How can you, a sensitive, intelligent woman, consent to be the servant of that selfish brute?”
“He has never understood me,” sighs the wife. Her satisfaction in being able to pronounce these damning words is so great, that it drowns the memory of a reply which her husband has given her again and again:
“Do you imagine that your thoughts are so profound that I, a man with a subtle brain, am unable to fathom them? Has it never occurred to you that it may be your shallowness which prevents you from understanding me?”
He sits down in his room, alone. He suffers from remorse, as if he had struck his mother. But she struck the first blow; she has struck him blow after blow, for many years, and never once before has he retaliated.
This coarse, heartless, cynical woman, in whose keeping he confided his whole soul with all its thoughts and emotions, was conscious of his superiority, and therefore she humiliated him, dragged him down, pulled him by the hair, covered him with abuse. Was it a crime that he struck back when she publicly taunted him? Yes—he felt as guilty as if he had murdered his dearest friend.
The twilight of the warm summer night deepens and the moon rises.
The sound of music from the drawing-room floats through his window. He goes into the garden and sits down under a walnut tree. Alone! The chords of the piano blend with the words of the song:
When the veil of night was drawnAnd crowded earth, mysterious seaBecame one sweet, enchanted groundFor us, until the starless dawnDissolved the failing moon—then weIn one long ecstasy were bound.Now, I, alone in silence and in painWeep for the ache of well-remembered bliss,For you who never can return again,For you, my spring time, for your love, your kiss.
He strolls through the garden and looks through the window. There she sits, his living poem, which he has composed for his own delight. She sings with tears in her voice. The ladies on the sofas look at one another significantly.
But behind the laurel bushes on a garden seat two men are sitting, smoking, and chatting. He can hear what they say.
“Nothing but the effect of the cognac.”
“Yes, they say that she drinks.”
“And blame the husband for it.”
“That’s a shame! She took to drinking in Julian’s studio. She was going to be an artist, you know, but she didn’t succeed. When they rejected her picture at the exhibition, she threw herself at the head of this poor devil and married him to hide her defeat.”
“Yes, I know, and made his life a burden until he is but the shadow of his former self. They started with a home of their own in Paris, and he kept two maids for her; still she called herself his servant. Although she was mistress over everything, she insisted that she was but his slave She neglected the house, the servants robbed them right and left, and he saw their home threatened with ruin without being able to move a finger to avert it. She opposed every suggestion he made; if he wanted black, she wanted white. In this way she broke his will and shattered, his nerves. He broke up his home and took her to a boarding-house to save her the trouble of housekeeping and enable her to devote herself entirely to her art. But she won’t touch a brush and goes out all day long with her friend. She has tried to come between him and his work, too, and drive him to drink, but she has not managed it; therefore she hates him, for he is the better of the two.”
“But the husband must be a fool,” remarks the other man.
“He is a fool wherever his wife is concerned, but he is no exception to the rule. They have been married for twelve years and he is still in love with her. The worst of it is that he is a strong man, who commanded the respect of Parliament and Press, is breaking up. I talked to him this morning; he is ill, to say the least.”
“Yes; I heard that she tried to have him locked up in a asylum, and that her friend did everything in her power to assist her.”
“And he works himself to death, so that she can enjoy herself.”
“Do you know why she treats him so contemptuously? Because he cannot give her all the luxury she wants. ‘A man who cannot give his wife all she wants,’ she said the other day at dinner, ‘ce n’est pas grand’ chose.’ I believe that she counted on his booming her as an artist. Unfortunately his political views prevent him from being on good terms with the leading papers, and, moreover, he has no friends in artistic circles; his interests lie elsewhere.”
“I see; she wanted to make use of him for her own ends; when he resisted she threw him over; but he serves his purpose as a breadwinner.”
Now, I, alone in silence and in pain,Weep for the ache of well-remembered bliss....
comes her voice from the drawing-room.
“Bang!” the sound came from behind the walnut tree. It was followed by a snapping of branches and a crunching of sand.
The talkers jumped to their feet.
The body of a well-dressed man lay across the road, with his head against the leg of a chair.
The song stopped abruptly. The ladies rushed into the garden. The friend poured a few drops of eau de Cologne which she held in her hand, on the face of the prostrate man.
When she realised that it was no fainting fit, she started back. “Horrible!” she exclaimed, putting her hand up to her face.
The elder of the two men, who was stooping over; the dead body, looked up.
“Be silent, woman!” he exclaimed.
“What a brute!” said the friend.
The dead man’s wife fainted, but was caught in the arms of her friend and tenderly nursed by the rest of the women.
“Send for a doctor!” shouted the elder of the two men. “Run!”
Nobody took any notice; everybody was busy with the unconscious wife.
“To bring such grief on his wife! Oh! what a man! What a man!” sobbed the friend.
“Has no one a thought for the dying man? All this’ fuss because a woman has fainted! Give her some brandy, that will revive her!”
“The wretched man has deserved his fate!” said the friend emphatically.
“He indeed deserved a better fate than to fall into your hands alive. Shame on you, woman, and all honour to the breadwinner!”
He let the hand of the dead man go and rose to his, feet.
“It’s all over!” he said.