Читать книгу: «Married», страница 15
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 do something useful 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 see him, the wife lost all interest in farming and cattle-breeding.
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, but I, 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.
HIS SERVANT OR DEBIT AND CREDIT
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:
“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’s cook and nursemaid:
Paid 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.
