“It’s sheer madness,” he said aloud, throwing the paper aside.
He slipped on his dressing-gown and went into the drawing-room.
Somebody was moving in Helena’s room.
He knocked.
“Is that you, Louise?” asked a voice from inside.
“No, it’s only I,” he whispered, hardly able to speak.
“What’s the matter? What do you want?”
“I want to speak to you, Helena,” he answered, hardly knowing what he was saying.
The key turned in the lock. Albert could hardly trust his ears. The door flew open. Helena stood on the threshold, still fully dressed.
“What is it you want?” she asked. Then she noticed that he was in his dressing-gown and that his eyes shone strangely.
She stretched out her hand, pushed him away and slammed the door.
He heard a thud on the floor and almost simultaneously loud sobs.
Furious, but abashed, he returned to his room. She was in earnest, then! But this was certainly anything but normal.
He lay awake all night, brooding, and on the following morning he breakfasted alone.
When he came home for lunch, Helena received him with an expression of pained resignation.
“Why do you treat me like that?” she asked.
He apologised, with as few words as possible. Then he repented his curtness and climbed down.
Thus matters stood for six months. He was tossed between doubt, rage and love, but his chain held.
His face grew pale and his eyes lost their lustre. His temper had become uncertain; a sullen fury smouldered beneath his outward calm.
Helena found him changed, despotic, because he was beginning to oppose her, and often left the meetings to seek amusement elsewhere.
One day he was asked to become a candidate for a professorial chair. He refused, believing that he had no chance, but Helena gave him no peace until he complied with the conditions. He was elected. He never knew the reason why, but Helena did.
A short time after there was a by-election.
The new professor, who had never dreamed of taking an active interest in public affairs, was nonplussed when he found himself nominated. His surprise was even greater when he was elected. He intended to decline, but Helena’s entreaties and her argument that life in a big city was preferable to an existence in a small provincial town induced him to accept the mandate.
They removed to Stockholm.
During these six months the newly-made professor and member of Parliament had made himself acquainted with the new ideas which came from England and purposed to recreate society and the old standards of morality. At the same time he felt that the moment was not far off when he would have to break with his “boarder.” He recovered his strength and vigour in Stockholm, where fearless thinkers encouraged him to profess openly the views which he had long held in secret.
Helena, on the other hand, scented a favourable opportunity in the counter-current and threw herself into the arms of the Church Party. This was too much for Albert and he rebelled. His love had grown cold; he found compensation elsewhere. He didn’t consider himself unfaithful to his wife for she had never claimed constancy in a relationship which didn’t exist.
His friendly intercourse with the other sex aroused his manliness and made him realise his degradation.
His growing estrangement did not escape Helena. Their home-life became unpleasant and every moment threatened to bring a catastrophe.
The opening of Parliament was imminent. Helena became restless and seemed to have changed her tactics. Her voice was more gentle and she appeared anxious to please him. She looked after the servants and saw that the meals were served punctually.
He grew suspicious and wondered, watched her movements and prepared for coming events.
One morning, at breakfast, Helena looked embarrassed and self-conscious. She played with her dinner napkin and cleared her throat several times. Then she took her courage in both her hands and made a plunge.
“Albert,” she began, “I can count on you, can’t I? You will serve the Cause to which I have devoted my life?”
“What cause is that?” he asked curtly, for now he had the upper hand.
“You will do something for the oppressed women, won’t you?”
“Where are the oppressed women?”
“What? Have you deserted our great cause? Are you leaving us in the lurch?”
“What cause are you talking about?”
“The Women’s Cause!”
“I know nothing about it.”
“You know nothing about it? Oh, come! You must admit that the position of the women of the lower classes is deplorable.”
“No, I can’t see that their position is any worse than the position of the men. Deliver the men from their exploiters and the women too will be free.”
“But the unfortunates who have to sell themselves, and the scoundrels who—”
“The scoundrels who pay! Has ever a man taken payment for a pleasure which both enjoy?”
“That is not the question! The question is whether it is just that the law of the land should punish the one and let the other go scotfree.”
“There is no injustice in that. The one has degraded herself until she has become a source of infection, and therefore the State treats her as it treats a mad dog. Whenever you find a man, degraded to that degree, well, put him under police control, too. Oh, you pure angels, who despise men and look upon them as unclean beasts!...”
“Well, what is it? What do you want me to do?”
He noticed that she had taken a manuscript from the sideboard and held it in her hand. Without waiting for a reply, he took it from her and began to examine it. “A bill to be introduced into Parliament! I’m to be the man of straw who introduces it! Is that moral? Strictly speaking, is it honest?”
Helena rose from her chair, threw herself on the sofa and burst into tears.
He, too, rose and went to her. He took her hand in his and felt her pulse, afraid lest her attack might be serious. She seized his hand convulsively, and pressed it against her bosom.
“Don’t leave me,” she sobbed, “don’t go. Stay, and let me keep faith in you.”
For the first time in his life he saw her giving way to her emotions. This delicate body, which he had loved and admired so much, could be warmed into life! Red, warm blood flowed in those blue veins. Blood which could distil tears. He gently stroked her brow.
“Oh!” she sighed, “why aren’t you always good to me like that? Why hasn’t it always been so?”
“Well,” he answered, “why hasn’t it? Tell me, why not?”
Helena’s eyelids drooped. “Why not?” she breathed, softly.
She did not withdraw her hand and he felt a gentle warmth radiating from her velvety skin; his love for her burst into fresh flames, but this time he felt that there was hope.
At last she rose to her feet.
“Don’t despise me,” she said, “don’t despise me, dear.”
And she went into her room.
What was the matter with her? Albert wondered as he went up to town. Was she passing through a crisis of some sort? Was she only just beginning to realise that she was his wife?
He spent the whole day in town. In the evening he went to the theatre. They playedLe monde où l’on s’ennuit. As he sat and watched platonic love, the union of souls, unmasked and ridiculed, he felt as if a veil of close meshed lies were being drawn from his reason; he smiled as he saw the head of the charming beast peeping from underneath the card-board wings of the stage-angel; he almost shed tears of amusement at his long, long self-deception; he laughed at his folly. What filth and corruption lay behind this hypocritical morality, this insane desire for emancipation from healthy, natural instincts. It was the ascetic teaching of idealism and Christianity which had implanted this germ into the nineteenth century.
He felt ashamed! How could he have allowed himself to be duped all this time!
There was still light in Helena’s room as he passed her door on tip-toe so as not to wake her. He heard her cough.
He went straight to bed, smoked his cigar and read his paper. He was absorbed in an article on conscription, when all of a sudden Helena’s door was flung open, and footsteps and screams from the drawing-room fell on his ears. He jumped up and rushed out of his room, believing that the house was on fire.
Helena was standing in the drawing-room in her nightgown.
She screamed when she saw her husband and ran to her room; on the threshold she hesitated and turned her head.
“Forgive me, Albert,” she stammered, “it’s you. I didn’t know that you were still up. I thought there were burglars in the house. Please, forgive me.”
And she closed her door.
What did it all mean? Was she in love with him?
He went into his room and stood before the looking-glass. Could any woman fall in love with him? He was plain. But one loves with one’s soul and many a plain man had married a beautiful woman. It was true, though, that in such cases the man had nearly always possessed wealth and influence.—Was Helena realising that she had placed herself in a false position? Or had she become aware of his intention to leave her and was anxious to win him back?
When they met at the breakfast table on the following morning, Helena was unusually gentle, and the professor noticed that she was wearing a new morning-gown trimmed with lace, which suited her admirably.
As he was helping himself to sugar, his hand accidentally touched hers.
“I beg your pardon, dear,” she said with an expression on her face whichhe had never seen before. She looked like a young girl.
They talked about indifferent things.
On the same day Parliament opened.
Helena’s yielding mood lasted and she grew more and more affectionate.
The period allowed for the introduction of new bills drew to a close.
One evening the professor came home from his club in an unusually gay frame of mind. He went to bed with his paper and his cigar. After a while he heard Helena’s door creak. Silence, lasting for a few minutes, followed. Then there came a knock at his door.
“Who is there?” he shouted.
“It’s I, Albert, do dress and come into the drawing-room, I want to speak to you.”
He dressed and went into the drawing-room.
Helena had lighted the chandelier and was sitting on the sofa, dressed in her lace morning-gown.
“Do forgive me,” she said, “but I can’t sleep. My head feels so strange. Come here and talk to me.”
“You are all unstrung, little girl,” said Albert, taking her hand in his own. “You ought to take some wine.”
He went into the dining-room and returned with a decanter and two glasses.
“Your health, darling,” he said.
Helena drank and her cheeks caught fire.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, putting his arm round her waist.
“I’m not happy,” she replied.
He was conscious that the words sounded dry and artificial, but his passion was roused and he didn’t care.
“Do you know why you are unhappy?” he asked.
“No. I only know one thing, and that is that I love you.”
Albert caught her in his arms and kissed her face.
“Are you my wife, or aren’t you?” he whispered hoarsely.
“I am your wife,” breathed Helena, collapsing, as if every nerve in her body had snapped.
“Altogether?” he whispered paralysing her with his kisses.
“Altogether,” she moaned, moving convulsively, like a sleeper struggling with the horrors of a nightmare.
When Albert awoke, he felt refreshed, his head was clear and he was fully conscious of what had happened in the night. He could think vigorously and logically like a man after a deep and restful sleep. The whole scene stood vividly before his mind. He saw the full significance of it, unvarnished, undisguised, in the sober light of the morning.
She had sold herself!
At three o’clock in the morning, intoxicated with love, blind to everything, half insane, he had promised to introduce her bill.
And the price! She had given herself to him calmly, coldly, unmoved.
Who was the first woman who found out that she could sell her favour? And who was the woman who discovered that man is a buyer? Whoever she was, she was the founder of marriage and prostitution. And they say that marriages are made in heaven!
He realised his degradation and hers. She wanted to triumph over her friends, to be the first woman who had taken an active share in the making of her country’s laws; for the sake of this triumph she had sold herself.
Well, he would tear the mask from her face. He would show her what she really was. He would tell her that prostitution could never be abolished while women found an advantage in selling themselves.
With his mind firmly made up, he got out of bed and dressed.
He had to wait a little for her in the dining-room. He rehearsed the scene which would follow and pulled himself together to meet her.
She came in calm, smiling, triumphant, but more beautiful than he had ever seen her before. A sombre fire burnt in her eyes, and he, who had expected that she would meet him with blushes and down-cast eyes, was crushed. She was the triumphant seducer, and he the bashful victim.
The words he had meant to say refused to come. Disarmed and humble he went to meet her and kissed her hand.
She talked as usual without the slightest indication that a new factor had entered her life.
He went to the House, fuming, with her bill in his pocket, and only the vision of the bliss in store for him, calmed his excited nerves.
But when, in the evening, he knocked quite boldly at her door, it remained closed.
It remained closed for three weeks. He cringed before her like a dog, obeyed every hint, fulfilled all her wishes—it was all in vain.
Then his indignation got the better of him and he overwhelmed her with a flood of angry words. She answered him sharply. But when she realised that she had gone too far, that his chain was wearing thin, she gave herself to him.
And he wore his chain. He bit it, strained every nerve to break it, but it held.
She soon learned how far she could go, and whenever he became restive, she yielded.
He was seized with a fanatical longing to make her a mother. He thought it might make a woman of her, bring out all that was good and wholesome in her. But the future seemed to hold no promise on that score.
Had ambition, the selfish passion of the individual, destroyed the source of life? He wondered....
One morning she informed him that she was going away for a few days to stay with her friends.
When he came home on the evening of the day of her departure and found the house empty, his soul was tormented by a cruel feeling of loss and longing. All of a sudden it became clear to him that he loved her with every fibre of his being. The house seemed desolate; it was just as if a funeral had taken place. When dinner was served he stared at her vacant chair and hardly touched his food.
After supper he lit the chandelier in the drawing-room. He sat down in her corner of the sofa. He fingered her needlework which she had left behind—it was a tiny jacket for a stranger’s baby in a newly-founded crèche. There was the needle, still sticking in the calico, just as she had left it. He pricked his finger with it as if to find solace in the ecstasy of pain.
Presently he lighted a candle and went into her bedroom. As he stood on the threshold, he shaded the flame with his hand and looked round like a man who is about to commit a crime. The room did not betray the slightest trace of femininity. A narrow bed without curtains; a writing-table, bookshelves, a smaller table by the side of her bed, a sofa. Just like his own room. There was no dressing-table, but a little mirror hung on the wall.
Her dress was hanging on a nail. The lines of her body were clearly defined on the thick, heavy serge. He caressed the material and hid his face in the lace which trimmed the neck; he put his arm round the waist, but the dress collapsed like a phantom. “They say the soul is a spirit,” he mused, “but then, it ought to be a tangible spirit, at least.” He approached the bed as if he expected to see an apparition. He touched everything, took everything in his hand.
At last, as if he were looking for something, something which should help him to solve the problem, he began to tug at the handles which ornamented the drawers of her writing-table; all the drawers were locked. As if by accident he opened the drawer of the little table by her bedside, and hastily closed it again, but not before he had read the title on the paper-cover of a small book and caught sight of a few strange-looking objects, the purpose of which he could guess.
That was it then!Facultative Sterility!What was intended for a remedy for the lower classes, who have been robbed of the means of existence, had become an instrument in the service of selfishness, the last consequence of idealism. Were the upper classes so degenerate that they refused to reproduce their species, or were they morally corrupt? They must be both, for they considered it immoral to bring illegitimate children into the world, and degrading to bear children in wedlock.
But he wanted children! He could afford to have them, and he considered it a duty as well as a glorious privilege to pour his individuality into a new being. It was Nature’s way from a true and healthy egoism towards altruism. But she travelled on another road and made jackets for the babies of strangers. Was that a better, a nobler thing to do? It stood for so much, and yet was nothing but fear of the burden of motherhood, and it was cheaper and less fatiguing to sit in the corner of a comfortable sofa and make little jackets than to bear the toil and broil of a nursery. It was looked upon as a disgrace to be a woman, to have a sex, to become a mother.
That was it. They called it working for Heaven, for higher interests, for humanity, but it was merely a pandering to vanity, to selfishness, to a desire for fame or notoriety.
And he had pitied her, he had suffered remorse because her sterility had made him angry. She had told him once that he deserved “the contempt of all good and honest men” because he had failed to speak of sterile women with the respect due to misfortune; she had told him that they were sacred, because their sorrow was the bitterest sorrow a woman could have to bear.
What, after all, was this woman working for? For progress? For the salvation of humanity? No, she was working against progress, against freedom and enlightenment. Hadn’t she recently brought forward a motion to limit religious liberty? Wasn’t she the author of a pamphlet on the intractability of servants? Wasn’t she advocating greater severity in the administration of the military laws? Was she not a supporter of the party which strives to ruin our girls by giving them the same miserable education which our boys receive?
He hated her soul, for he hated her ideas. And yet he loved her? What was it then that he loved?
Probably, he reflected, compelled to take refuge in philosophy, probably the germ of a new being, which she carries in her womb, but which she is bent on killing.
What else could it be?
But what did she love in him? His title, his position, his influence?
How could these old and worn-out men and women rebuild society?
He meant to tell her all this when she returned home; but in his inmost soul he knew all the time that the words would never be said. He knew that he would grovel before her and whine for her favour; that he would remain her slave and sell her his soul again and again, just as she sold him her body. He knew that that was what he would do, for he was head over ears in love with her.
The young barrister was strolling on a lovely spring evening through the old Stockholm Hop-Garden. Snatches of song and music came from the pavilion; light streamed through the large windows and lit up the shadows cast by the great lime trees which were just bursting into leaf.
He went in, sat down at a vacant table near the platform and asked for a glass of punch.
A young comedian was singing a pathetic ballad of aDead Rat. Then a young girl, dressed in pink, appeared and sang the Danish song:There is nothing so charming as a moonshine ride.She was comparatively innocent looking and she addressed her song to our innocent barrister. He felt flattered by this mark of distinction, and at once started negotiations which began with a bottle of wine and ended in a furnished flat, containing two rooms, a kitchen and all the usual conveniences.
It is not within the scope of this little story to analyse the feelings of the young man, or give a description of the furniture and the other conveniences. It must suffice if I say that they were very good friends.
But, imbued with the socialistic tendencies of our time, and desirous of having his lady-love always under his eyes, the young man decided to live in the flat himself and make his little friend his house keeper. She was delighted at the suggestion.
But the young man had a family, that is to say, his family looked upon him as one of its members, and since in their opinion he was committing an offence against morality, and casting a slur on their good name, he was summoned to appear before the assembled parents, brothers and sisters in order to be censured. He considered that he was too old for such treatment and the family tie was ruptured.
This made him all the more fond of his own little home, and he developed into a very domesticated husband, excuse me, lover. They were happy, for they loved one another, and no fetters bound them. They lived in the happy dread of losing one another and therefore they did their utmost to keep each other’s love. They were indeed one.
But there was one thing which they lacked: they had no friends. Society displayed no wish to know them, and the young man was not asked to the houses of the “Upper Ten.”
It was Christmas Eve, a day of sadness for all those who once had a family. As he was sitting at breakfast, he received a letter. It was from his sister, who implored him to spend Christmas at home, with his parents. The letter touched upon the strings of old feelings and put him in a bad temper. Was he to leave his little friend alone on Christmas Eve? Certainly not! Should his place in the house of his parents remain vacant for the first time on a Christmas Eve? H’m! This was the position of affairs when he went to the Law Courts.
During the interval for lunch a colleague came up to him and asked him as discreetly as possible:
“Are you going to spend Christmas Eve with your family?”
He flared up at once. Was his friend aware of his position? Or what did he mean?
The other man saw that he had stepped on a corn, and added hastily, without waiting for a reply:
“Because if you are not, you might spend it with us. You know, perhaps, that I have a little friend, a dear little soul.”
It sounded all right and he accepted the invitation on condition that they should both be invited. Well, but of course, what else did he think? And this settled the problem of friends and Christmas Eve.
They met at six o’clock at the friend’s flat, and while the two “old men” had a glass of punch, the women went into the kitchen.
All four helped to lay the table. The two “old men” knelt on the floor and tried to lengthen the table by means of boards and wedges. The women were on the best of terms at once, for they felt bound together by that very obvious tie which bears the great name of “public opinion.” They respected one another and saved one another’s feelings. They avoided those innuendoes in which husbands and wives are so fond of indulging when their children are not listening, just as if they wanted to say: “We have a right to say these things now we are married.”
When they had eaten the pudding, the barrister made a speech praising the delights of one’s own fireside, that refuge from the world and from all men: that harbour where one spends one’s happiest hours in the company of one’s real friends.
Mary-Louisa began to cry, and when he urged her to tell him the cause of her distress, and the reason of her unhappiness, she told him in a voice broken by sobs that she could see that he was missing his mother and sisters.
He replied that he did not miss them in the least, and that he should wish them far away if they happened to turn up now.
“But why couldn’t he marry her?”
“Weren’t they as good as married?”
“No, they weren’t married properly.”
“By a clergyman? In his opinion a clergyman was nothing but a student who had passed his examinations, and his incantations were pure mythology.”
“That was beyond her, but she knew that something was wrong, and the other people in the house pointed their fingers at her.”
“Let them point!”
Sophy joined in the conversation. She said she knew that they were not good enough for his relations; but she didn’t mind. Let everybody keep his own place and be content.
Anyhow, they had friends now, and lived together in harmony, which is more than could be said of many properly constituted families. The tie which held them together remained intact, but they were otherwise unfettered. They continued being lovers without contracting any bad matrimonial habits, as, for example, the habit of being rude to one another.
After a year or two their union was blest with a son. The mistress had thereby risen to the rank of a mother, and everything else was forgotten. The pangs which she had endured at the birth of the baby, and her care for the newly born infant, had purged her of her old selfish claims to all the good things of the earth, including the monopoly of her husband’s love.
In her new role as mother she gave herself superior little airs with her friend, and showed a little more assurance in her intercourse with her lover.
One day the latter came home with a great piece of news. He had met his eldest sister in the street and had found her well informed on all their private affairs. She was very anxious to see her little nephew and had promised to pay them a call.
Mary-Louisa was surprised, and at once began to sweep and dust the flat; in addition she insisted on a new dress for the occasion. And then she waited for a whole week. The curtains were sent to the laundry, the brass knobs on the doors of the stoves were made to shine, the furniture was polished. The sister should see that her brother was living with a decent person.
And then she made coffee, one morning at eleven o’clock, the time when the sister would call.
She came, straight as if she had swallowed a poker, and gave Mary-Louisa a hand which was as stiff as a batting staff. She examined the bed-room furniture, but refused to drink coffee, and never once looked her sister-in-law in the face. But she showed a faint, though genuine, interest in the baby. Then she went away again.
Mary-Louisa in the meantime had carefully examined her coat, priced the material of her dress and conceived a new idea of doing her hair. She had not expected any great display of cordiality. As a start, the fact of the visit was quite sufficient in itself, and she soon let the house know that her sister-in-law had called.
The boy grew up and by and by a baby sister arrived. Now Mary-Louisa began to show the most tender solicitude for the future of the children, and not a day passed but she tried to convince their father that nothing but a legal marriage with her would safeguard their interests.
In addition to this his sister gave him a very plain hint to the effect that a reconciliation with his parents was within the scope of possibility, if he would but legalise his liaison.
After having fought against it day and night for two years, he consented at last, and resolved that for the children’s sake the mythological ceremony should be allowed to take place.
But whom should they ask to the wedding? Mary-Louisa insisted on being married in church. In this case Sophy could not be invited. That was an impossibility. A girl like her! Mary-Louisa had already learnt to pronounce the word “girl” with a decidedly moral accent. He reminded her that Sophy had been a good friend to her, and that ingratitude was not a very fine quality. Mary-Louisa, however, pointed out that parents must be prepared to sacrifice private sympathies at the altar of their children’s prospects; and she carried the day.
The wedding took place.
The wedding was over. No invitation arrived from his parents, but a furious letter from Sophy which resulted in a complete rupture.
Mary-Louisa was a wedded wife, now. But she was more lonely than she had been before. Embittered by her disappointment, sure of her husband who was now legally tied to her, she began to take all those liberties which married people look upon as their right. What she had once regarded in the light of a voluntary gift, she now considered a tribute due to her. She entrenched herself behind the honourable title of “the mother of his children,” and from there she made her sallies.
Simple-minded, as all duped husbands are, he could never grasp what constituted the sacredness in the fact that she was the mother ofhischildren. Why his children should be different from other children, and from himself, was a riddle to him.
But, with an easy conscience, because his children had a legal mother now, he commenced to take again an interest in the world which he had to a certain extent forgotten in the first ecstasy of his love-dream, and which later on he had neglected because he hated to leave his wife and children alone.
These liberties displeased his wife, and since there was no necessity for her to mince matters now, and she was of an outspoken disposition, she made no secrets of her thoughts.
But he had all the lawyer’s tricks at his fingers’ ends, and was never at a loss for a reply.
“Do you think it right,” she asked, “to leave the mother of your children alone at home with them, while you spend your time at a public house?”
“I don’t believe you missed me,” he answered by way of a preliminary.
“Missed you? If the husband spends the housekeeping money on drink, the wife will miss a great many things in the house.”
“To start with I don’t drink, for I merely have a mouthful of food and drink a cup of coffee; secondly, I don’t spend the housekeeping money on drink, for you keep it locked up: I have other funds which I spend ‘on drink.’”
Unfortunately women cannot stand satire, and the noose, made in fun, was at once thrown round his neck.
“You do admit, then, that you drink?”
“No, I don’t, I used your expression in fun.”
“In fun? You are making fun of your wife? You never used to do that!”
“You wanted the marriage ceremony. Why are things so different now?”
“Because we are married, of course.”
“Partly because of that, and partly because intoxication has the quality of passing off.”
“It was only intoxication in your case, then?”
“Not only in my case; in your case, too, and in all others as well. It passes off more or less quickly.”
“And so love is nothing but intoxication as far as a man is concerned!”
“As far as a woman is concerned too!”
“Nothing but intoxication!”
“Quite so! But there is no reason why one shouldn’t remain friends.”
“One need not get married for that!”
“No; and that’s exactly what I meant to point out.”
“You? Wasn’t it you who insisted on our marriage?”
“Only because you worried me about it day and night three long years.”
“But it was your wish, too!”
“Only because you wished it. Be grateful to me now that you’ve got it!”
“Shall I be grateful because you leave the mother of your children alone with them while you spend your time at the public-house?”
“No, not for that, but because I married you!” “You really think I ought to be grateful for that?”
“Yes, like all decent people who have got their way!”
“Well, there is no happiness in a marriage like ours. Your family doesn’t acknowledge me!”
“What have you got to do with my family? I haven’t married yours?”
“Because you didn’t think it good enough!”
“But mine was good enough for you. If they had been shoemakers, you wouldn’t mind so much.”
“You talk of shoemakers as if they were beneath your notice. Aren’t they human beings like everybody else?”
“Of course they are, but I don’t think you would have run after them.”
“All right! Have your own way.”
But it was not all right, and it was never again all right. Was it due to the fact of their being married, or was it due to something else? Mary-Louisa could not help admitting in her heart that the old times had been better times; they had been “jollier” she said.
He did not think that it was only owing to the fact that their marriage had been legalised for he had observed that other marriages, too, were not happy. And the worst of it all was this: when one day he went to see his old friend and Sophy, as he sometimes did, behind his wife’s back, he was told that there was an end to that matter. And they had not been married. So it could not have been marriage which was to blame.
She was plain and therefore the coarse young men who don’t know how to appreciate a beautiful soul in an ugly body took no notice of her. But she was wealthy, and she knew that men run after women for the sake of their wealth; whether they do it because all wealth has been created by men and they therefore claim the capital for their sex, or on other grounds, was not quite clear to her. As she was a rich woman, she learned a good many things, and as she distrusted and despised men, she was considered an intellectual young woman.
She had reached the age of twenty. Her mother was still alive, but she had no intention to wait for another five years before she became her own mistress. Therefore she quite suddenly surprised her friends with an announcement of her engagement.
“She is marrying because she wants a husband,” said some.
“She is marrying because she wants a footman and her liberty,” said others.
“How stupid of her to get married,” said the third; “she doesn’t know that she will be even less her own mistress than she is now.”
“Don’t be afraid,” said the fourth, “she’ll hold her own in spite of her marriage.”
What was he like? Who was he? Where had she found him?
He was a young lawyer, rather effeminate in appearance, with broad hips and a shy manner. He was an only son, brought up by his mother and aunt. He had always been very much afraid of girls, and he detested the officers on account of their assurance, and because they were the favourites at all entertainments. That is what he was like.
They were staying at a watering place and met at a dance. He had come late and all the girls’ programmes were full. A laughing, triumphant “No!” was flung into his face wherever he asked for a dance, and a movement of the programme brushed him away as if he were a buzzing fly.
Offended and humiliated he left the ball-room and sat down on the verandah to smoke a cigar. The moon threw her light on the lime-trees in the Park and the perfume of the mignonette rose from the flower beds.
He watched the dancing couples through the windows with the impotent yearning of the cripple; the voluptuous rhythm of the waltz thrilled him through and through.
“All alone and lost in dreams?” said a voice suddenly. “Why aren’t you dancing?”
“Why aren’t you?” he replied, looking up.
“Because I am plain and nobody asked me to,” she answered.
He looked at her. They had known each other for some time, but he had never studied her features. She was exquisitely dressed, and in her eyes lay an expression of infinite pain, the pain of despair and vain revolt against the injustice of nature; he felt a lively sympathy for her.
“I, too, am scorned by everybody,” he said. “All the rights belong to the officers. Whenever it is a question of natural selection, right is on the side of the strong and the beautiful. Look at their shoulders and epaulettes....”
“How can you talk like that!”
“I beg your pardon! To have to play a losing game makes a man bitter! Will you give me a dance?”
“For pity’s sake?”
“Yes! Out of compassion for me!”
He threw away his cigar.
“Have you ever known what it means to be marked by the hand of fate, and rejected? To be always the last?” he began again, passionately.
“I have known all that! But the last do not always remain the last,” she added, emphatically. “There are other qualities, besides beauty, which count.”
“What quality do you appreciate most in a man?”
“Kindness,” she exclaimed, without the slightest hesitation. “For this is a quality very rarely found in a man.”
“Kindness and weakness usually go hand in hand; women admire strength.”
“What sort of women are you talking about? Rude strength has had its day; our civilisation has reached a sufficiently high standard to make us value muscles and rude strength no more highly than a kind heart.”
“It ought to have! And yet—watch the dancing couples!”
“To my mind true manliness is shown in loftiness of sentiment and intelligence of the heart.”
“Consequently a man whom the whole world calls weak and cowardly....”
“What do I care for the world and its opinion!”
“Do you know that you are a very remarkable woman?” said the young lawyer, feeling more and more interested.
“Not in the least remarkable! But you men are accustomed to regard women as dolls....”
“What sort of men do you mean? I, dear lady, have from my childhood looked up to woman as a higher manifestation of the species man, and from the day on which I fell in love with a woman, and she returned my love, I should be her slave.”
Adeline looked at him long and searchingly.
“You are a remarkable man,” she said, after a pause.
After each of the two had declared the other to be a remarkable specimen of the species man, and made a good many remarks on the futility of dancing, they began to talk of the melancholy influence of the moon. Then they returned to the ball-room and took their place in a set of quadrilles.
Adeline was a perfect dancer and the lawyer won her heart completely because he “danced like an innocent girl.”
When the set was over, they went out again on the verandah and sat down.
“What is love?” asked Adeline, looking at the moon as if she expected an answer from heaven.
“The sympathy of the souls,” he replied, and his voice sounded like the whispering breeze.
“But sympathy may turn to antipathy; it has happened frequently,” objected Adeline.
“Then it wasn’t genuine! There are materialists who say that there would be no such thing as love if there weren’t two sexes, and they dare to maintain that sensual love is more lasting than the love of the soul. Don’t you think it low and bestial to see nothing but sex in the beloved woman?”
“Don’t speak of the materialists!”
“Yes, I must, so that you may realise the loftiness of my feelings for a woman, if ever I fell in love. She need not be beautiful; beauty soon fades. I should look upon her as a dear friend, a chum. I should never feel shy in her company, as with any ordinary girl. I should approach her without fear, as I am approaching you, and I should say: ‘Will you be my friend for life?’ I should be able to speak to her without the slightest tremor of that nervousness which a lover is supposed to feel when he proposes to the object of his tenderness, because his thoughts are not pure.”
Adeline looked at the young man, who had taken her hand in his, with enraptured eyes.
“You are an idealist,” she said, “and I agree with you from the very bottom of my heart. You are asking for my friendship, if I understand you rightly. It shall be yours, but I must put you to the test first. Will you prove to me that you can pocket your pride for the sake of a friend?”
“Speak and I shall obey!”
Adeline took off a golden chain with a locket which she had been wearing round her neck.
“Wear this as a symbol of our friendship.”
“I will wear it,” he said, in an uncertain voice; “but it might make the people think that we are engaged.”
“And do you object?”
“No, not if you don’t! Will you be my wife?”
“Yes, Axel! I will! For the world looks askance at friendship between man and woman; the world is so base that it refuses to believe in the possibility of such a thing.”
And he wore the chain.
The world, which is very materialistic at heart, repeated the verdict of her friends:
“She marries him in order to be married; he marries her because he wants a wife.”
The world made nasty remarks, too. It said that he was marrying her for the sake of her money; for hadn’t he himself declared that anything so degrading as love did not exist between them? There was no need for friends to live together like married couples.
The wedding took place. The world had received a hint that they would live together like brother and sister, and the world awaited with a malicious grin the result of the great reform which should put matrimony on another basis altogether.
The newly married couple went abroad.
When they returned, the young wife was pale and ill-tempered. She began at once to take riding-lessons. The world scented mischief and waited. The man looked as if he were guilty of a base act and was ashamed of himself. It all came out at last.
“They havenotbeen living like brother and sister,” said the world.
“What? Without loving one another? But that is—well, what is it?”
“A forbidden relationship!” said the materialists.
“It is a spiritual marriage!”
“Or incest,” suggested an anarchist.
Facts remained facts, but the sympathy was on the wane. Real life, stripped of All make-believe, confronted them and began to take revenge.
The lawyer practised his profession, but the wife’s profession was practised by a maid and a nurse. Therefore she had no occupation. The want of occupation encouraged brooding, and she brooded a great deal over her position. She found it unsatisfactory. Was it right that an intellectual woman like her should spend her days in idleness? Once her husband had ventured to remark that no one compelled her to live in idleness. He never did it again.
“She had no profession.”
“True; to be idle was no profession. Why didn’t she nurse the baby?”
“Nurse the baby? She wanted a profession which brought in money.”
“Was she such a miser, then? She had already more than she knew how to spend; why should she want to earn money?”
“To be on an equal footing with him.”
“That could never be, for she would always be in a position to which he could never hope to attain. It was nature’s will that the woman was to be the mother, not the man.”
“A very stupid arrangement!”
“Very likely! The opposite might have been the case, but that would have been equally stupid.”
“Yes; but her life was unbearable. It didn’t satisfy her to live for the family only, she wanted to live for others as well.”
“Hadn’t she better begin with the family? There was plenty of time to think of the others.”
The conversation might have continued through all eternity; as it was it only lasted an hour.
The lawyer was, of course, away almost all day long, and even when he was at home he had his consulting hours. It drove Adeline nearly mad. He was always locked in his consulting-room with other women who confided information to him which he was bound to keep secret. These secrets formed a barrier between them, and made her feel that he was more than a match for her.
It roused a sullen hatred in her heart; she resented the injustice of their mutual relationship; she sought for a means to drag him down. Come down he must, so that they should be on the same level.
One day she proposed the foundation of a sanatorium. He said all he could against it, for he was very busy with his practice. But on further consideration he thought that occupation of some sort might be the saving of her; perhaps it would help her to settle down.
The sanatorium was founded; he was one of the directors.
She was on the Committee and ruled. When she had ruled for six months, she imagined herself so well up in the art of healing that she interviewed patients and gave them advice.
“It’s easy enough,” she said.
Then it happened that the house-surgeon made a mistake, and she straightway lost all confidence in him. It further happened that one day, in the full consciousness of her superior wisdom, she prescribed for a patient herself, in the doctor’s absence. The patient had the prescription made up, took it and died.
This necessitated a removal to another centre of activity. But it disturbed the equilibrium. A second child, which was born about the same time, disturbed it still more and, to make matters worse, a rumour of the fatal accident was spreading through the town.
The relations between husband and wife were unlovely and sad, for there had never been any love between them. The healthy, powerful natural instinct, which does not reflect, was absent; what remained was an unpleasant liaison founded on the uncertain calculations of a selfish friendship.
She never voiced the thoughts hatched behind her burning brow after she had discovered that she was mistaken in believing that she had a higher mission, but she made her husband suffer for it.
Her health failed; she lost her appetite and refused to go out. She grew thin and seemed to be suffering from a chronic cough. The husband made her repeatedly undergo medical examinations, but the doctors were unable to discover the cause of her malady. In the end he became so accustomed to her constant complaints that he paid no more attention to them.
“I know it’s unpleasant to have an invalid wife,” she said.
He admitted in his heart that it was anything but pleasant; had he loved her, he would neither have felt nor admitted it.
Her emaciation became so alarming, that he could not shut his eyes to it any longer, and had to consent to her suggestion that she should consult a famous professor.
Adeline was examined by the celebrity. “How long have you been ill?” he asked.
“I have never been very strong since I left the country,” she replied. “I was born in the country.”
“Then you don’t feel well in town?”
“Well? Who cares whether I feel well or not?” And her face assumed an expression which left no room for doubt: she was a martyr.
“Do you think that country air would do you good?” continued the professor.
“Candidly, I believe that it is the only thing which could save my life.”
“Then why don’t you live in the country?”
“My husband couldn’t give up his profession for my sake.”
“He has a wealthy wife and we have plenty of lawyers.”
“You think, then, that we ought to live in the country?”
“Certainly, if you believe that it would do you good. You are not suffering from any organic disease, but your nerves are unstrung; country air would no doubt benefit you.”
Adeline returned home to her husband very depressed.
“Well?”
“The professor had sentenced her to death if she remained in town.”
The lawyer was much upset. But since the fact that his distress was mainly caused by the thought of giving up his practice was very apparent, she held that she had absolute proof that the question of her health was a matter of no importance to him.
“What? He didn’t believe that it was a matter of life and death? Didn’t he think the professor knew better than he? Was he going to let her die?”
He was not going to let her die. He bought an estate in the country and engaged an inspector to look after it.
As a sheriff and a district-judge were living on the spot, the lawyer had no occupation. The days seemed to him as endless as they were unpleasant. Since his income had stopped with his practice, he was compelled to live on his wife’s money. In the first six months he read a great deal and played “Fortuna.” In the second six months he gave up reading, as it served no object. In the third he amused himself by doing needle-work.
His wife, on the other hand, devoted herself to the farm, pinned up her skirts to the knees and went into the stables. She came into the house dirty, and smelling of the cow-shed. She felt well and ordered the labourers about that it was a pleasure to hear her, for she had grown up in the country and knew what she was about.
When her husband complained of having nothing to do, she laughed at him.
“Find some occupation in the house. No one need ever be idle in a house like this.”
He would have liked to suggest some outside occupation, but he had not the courage.
He ate, slept, and went for walks. If he happened to enter the barn or the stables, he was sure to be in the way and be scolded by his wife.
One day, when he had grumbled more than usual, while the children had been running about, neglected by the nurse, she said:
“Why don’t you look after the children? That would give you something to do.”
He stared at her. Did she really mean it?
“Well, why shouldn’t he look after the children? Was there anything strange in her suggestion?”
He thought the matter over and found nothing strange in it. Henceforth he took the children for a walk every day.
One morning, when he was ready to go out, the children were not dressed. The lawyer felt angry and went grumbling to his wife; of the servants he was afraid.
“Why aren’t the children dressed?” he asked.
“Because Mary is busy with other things. Why don’t you dress them? You’ve nothing else to do. Do you consider it degrading to dress your own children?”
He considered the matter for a while, but could see nothing degrading in it. He dressed them.
One day he felt inclined to take his gun and go out by himself, although he never shot anything.
His wife met him on his return.
“Why didn’t you take the children for a walk this morning?” she asked sharply and reproachfully.
“Because I didn’t feel inclined to do so.”
“You didn’t feel inclined? Do you think I want to work all day long in stable and barn? One ought to dosomethinguseful during the day, even if it does go against one’s inclination.”
“So as to pay for one’s dinner, you mean?”
“If you like to put it that way! If I were a big man like you, I should be ashamed to be lying all day long on a sofa, doing nothing.”
He really felt ashamed, and henceforth he established himself the children’s nurse. He never failed in his duties. He saw no disgrace in it, yet he was unhappy. Something was wrong, somewhere, he thought, but his wife always managed to carry her point.
She sat in the office and interviewed inspector and overseer; she stood in the store-room and weighed out stores for the cottagers. Everybody who came on the estate asked for the mistress, nobody ever wanted to see the master.
One day he took the children past a field in which cattle were grazing. He wanted to show them the cows and cautiously took them up to the grazing herd. All at once a black head, raised above the backs of the other animals, stared at the visitors, bellowing softly.
The lawyer picked up the children and ran back to the fence as hard as he could. He threw them over and tried to jump it himself, but was caught on the top. Noticing some women on the other side, he shouted:
“The bull! the bull!”
But the women merely laughed, and went to pull the children, whose clothes were covered with mud, out of the ditch.
“Don’t you see the bull?” he screamed.
“It’s no bull, sir,” replied the eldest of the women, “the bull was killed a fortnight ago.”
He came home, angry and ashamed and complained of the women to his wife. But she only laughed.
In the afternoon, as husband and wife were together in the drawing-room, there was a knock at the door.
“Come in!” she called out.
One of the women who had witnessed the adventure with the bull came in, holding in her hand the lawyer’s gold chain.
“I believe this belongs to you, M’m,” she said hesitatingly.
Adeline looked first at the woman and then at her husband, who stared at the chain with wide-open eyes.
“No, it belongs to your master,” she said, taking the proffered chain. “Thank you! Your master will give you something for finding it.”
He was sitting there, pale and motionless.
“I have no money, ask my wife to give you something,” he said, taking the necklet.
Adeline took a crown out of her big purse and handed it to the woman, who went away, apparently without understanding the scene.
“You might have spared me this humiliation!” he said, and his voice plainly betrayed the pain he felt.
“Are you not man enough to take the responsibility for your words and actions on your own shoulders? Are you ashamed to wear a present I gave you, while you expect me to wear yours? You’re a coward! And you imagine yourself to be a man!”
Henceforth the poor lawyer had no peace. Wherever he went, he met grinning faces, and farm-labourers and maid-servants from the safe retreat of sheltered nooks, shouted “the bull! the bull!” whenever he went past.
Adeline had resolved to attend an auction and stay away for a week. She asked her husband to look after the servants in her absence.
On the first day the cook came and asked him for money for sugar and coffee. He gave it to her. Three days later she came again and asked him for the same thing. He expressed surprise at her having already spent what he had given her.
“I don’t want it all for myself,” she replied, “and mistress doesn’t mind.”
He gave her the money. But, wondering whether he had made a mistake, he opened his wife’s account book and began to add up the columns.
He arrived at a strange result. When he had added up all the pounds for a month, he found it came to a lispound.
He continued checking her figures, and the result was everywhere the same. He took the principal ledger and found that, leaving the high figures out of the question, very stupid mistakes in the additions had been made. Evidently his wife knew nothing of denominate quantities or decimal fractions. This unheard of cheating of the servants must certainly lead to ruin.
His wife came home. After having listened to a detailed account of the auction, he cleared his throat, intending to tell his tale, but his wife anticipated his report:
“Well, and how did you get on with the servants?”
“Oh! very well, but I am certain that they cheat you.”
“Cheat me!”
“Yes; for instance the amount spent on coffee and sugar is too large.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw it in your account book.”
“Indeed! You poked your nose into my books?”
“Poked my nose into your books? No, but I took it upon me to check your....”
“What business was it of yours?”
“And I found that you keep books without having the slightest knowledge of denominate quantities or decimal fractions.”
“What? You think I don’t know?”
“No, you don’t! And therefore the foundations of the establishment are shaky. Your book-keeping is all humbug, old girl!”
“My book-keeping concerns no one but myself.”
“Incorrect book-keeping is an offence punishable by law; if you are not liable, then I am.”
“The law? I care a fig for the law!”
“I daresay! But we shall get into its clutches, if not you, then most certainly I! And therefore I am going to be book-keeper in the future.”
“We can engage a man to do it.”
“No, that’s not necessary! I have nothing else to do.”
And that settled the matter.
But once the husband occupied the chair at the desk and the people came to seehim, the wife lost all interest in farming and cattle-breeding.