Читать книгу: «Married», страница 14

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.

UNMARRIED AND MARRIED

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 a Dead 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 of his children. 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.

A DUEL

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 have not been 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.