In the preface to the English edition of "Damaged Goods," George Bernard
Shaw relates a story concerning Lord Melbourne, in the early days of
Queen Victoria. When the cabinet meeting threatened to break up in
confusion, Lord Melbourne put his back to the door and said: "Gentlemen,
we can tell the house the truth or we can tell it a lie. I don't give a
damn which it is. All I insist on is that we shall all tell the same
lie, and you shall not leave the room until you have settled what it is
to be."
This seems to characterize the position of our middle-class morality
to-day. Whether a thing be right or wrong, we are all to express the
same opinion on the subject. All must agree on the same lie, and the lie
upon which all agree, more than on any other, is the lie of purity,
which must be kept up at all costs.
How slow our moralists move is best proved by the fact that although the
great scientist Neisser had discovered, as far back as 1879, that
supposedly insignificant venereal afflictions are due to a malignant
micro-organism often disastrous not only to the immediate victim, but
also to those who come in touch with him, the subject is still largely
tabooed and must not be discussed.
To be sure, there is a small contingent of men and women who realize the
necessity of a frank discussion of the very important matter of venereal
disease. But unfortunately they are attempting to drive out the devil
with fire. They are enlightening the public as to the gravity of
gonorrhea and syphilis, but are implanting an evil by no means less
harmful, namely, the element of fear. The result often is that the
victims who contract an infection are as little capable of taking care
of themselves now as in the past when they knew little about the
subject.
Brieux is among the few who treats the question in a frank manner,
showing that the most dangerous phase of venereal disease is ignorance
and fear, and that if treated openly and intelligently, it is perfectly
curable. Brieux also emphasizes the importance of kindness and
consideration for those who contract the affliction, since it has
nothing to do with what is commonly called evil, immorality, or
impurity.
Therein lies the superiority of "Damaged Goods" to most scientific
treatises. Without lacking logic and clarity, it has greater humanity
and warmth.
But "Damaged Goods" contains more than an exposé of venereal disease. It
touches upon the whole of our social life. It points out the
cold-blooded indifference of the rich toward those who do not belong to
their class, to the poor, the workers, the disinherited whom they
sacrifice without the slightest compunction on the altar of their own
comforts. Moreover, the play also treats of the contemptible attitude
towards love not backed by property or legal sanction. In short, it
uncovers and exposes not only sexual disease but that which is even more
terrible--our social disease, our social syphilis.
* * * * *
_George Dupont_, the son of wealthy people is informed by a specialist
that he has contracted a venereal disease of a most serious nature; but
that with patience and time he will be cured. _Dupont_ is crushed by the
news, and decides to blow out his brains. His only regret is that he
cannot in the least account for his trouble.
_George._ I'm not a rake, Doctor. My life might be held up as an
example to all young men. I assure you, no one could possibly be
more prudent, no one. See here; supposing I told you that in all my
life I have only had two mistresses, what would you say to that?
_Doctor._ That would have been enough to bring you here.
_George._ No, Doctor. Not one of those two. No one in the world has
dreaded this so much as I have; no one has taken such infinite
precautions to avoid it. My first mistress was the wife of my best
friend. I chose her on account of him; and him, not because I cared
most for him, but because I knew he was a man of the most rigid
morals, who watched his wife jealously and didn't let her go about
forming imprudent connections. As for her, I kept her in absolute
terror of this disease. I told her that almost all men were taken
with it, so that she mightn't dream of being false to me. My friend
died in my arms. That was the only thing that could have separated
me from her. Then I took up with a young seamstress.... Well, this
was a decent girl with a family in needy circumstances to support.
Her grandmother was an invalid, and there was an ailing father and
three little brothers. It was by my means that they all lived.... I
told her and I let the others know that if she played me false I
should leave her at once. So then they all watched her for me. It
became a regular thing that I should spend Sunday with them, and in
that sort of way I was able to give her a lift up. Church-going was
a respectable kind of outing for her. I rented a pew for them and
her mother used to go with her to church; they liked seeing their
name engraved on the card. She never left the house alone. Three
months ago, when the question of my marriage came up, I had to leave
her.
_Doctor._ You were very happy, why did you want to change?
_George._ I wanted to settle down. My father was a notary, and
before his death he expressed a wish that I should marry my cousin.
It was a good match; her dowry will help to get me a practice.
Besides, I simply adore her. She's fond of me, too. I had everything
one could want to make my life happy. And then a lot of idiots must
give me a farewell dinner and make me gad about with them. See what
has come of it! I haven't any luck, I've never had any luck! I know
fellows who lead the most racketty life: nothing happens to them,
the beasts! But I--for a wretched lark--what is there left for a
leper like me? My future is ruined, my whole life poisoned. Well
then, isn't it better for me to clear out of it? Anyway, I shan't
suffer any more. You see now, no one could be more wretched than I
am.
The doctor explains to him that there is no need for despair, but that
he must postpone his marriage if he does not wish to ruin his wife and
possibly make her sterile for life. It is imperative especially because
of the offspring, which is certain to be syphilitic.
_Doctor._ Twenty cases identical with yours have been carefully
observed--from the beginning to the end. Nineteen times--you hear,
nineteen times in twenty--the woman was contaminated by her husband.
You think that the danger is negligible: you think you have the
right to let your wife take her chance, as you said, of being one of
the exceptions for which we can do nothing! Very well then; then you
shall know what you are doing. You shall know what sort of a disease
it is that your wife will have five chances per cent. of contracting
without so much as having her leave asked. ... But there is not
only your wife,--there are her children, your children, whom you may
contaminate, too. It is in the name of those innocent little ones
that I appeal to you; it is the future of the race that I am
defending.
But _George Dupont_ will not postpone the marriage for several years. He
would have to give an explanation, break his word, and lose his
inheritance,--things infinitely more important than any consideration
for the girl he "adores" or for their children, should they have any. In
short, he is actuated by the morality of the bourgeoisie: the silly
conception of honor, the dread of public opinion and, above all, the
greed for property.
* * * * *
The second act is laid at the home of _George Dupont_. _George_ and his
wife _Henriette_ are childishly happy, except for the regret that their
marriage could not have taken place six months earlier because poor
George had been declared consumptive. How stupid of doctors to suspect
the healthy strong _George Dupont_ of consumption! But, then, "all
doctors are stupid." But now that they are together, nothing shall part
them in their great happiness, and especially in their great love for
their baby. True, a little cloud obscures their sunny horizon. The baby
is not very strong; but with the care and devotion of the grandmother,
out in the country air, it is sure to recover.
The grandmother unexpectedly arrives, announcing that she has brought
the baby back to town: it is very ill and she has consulted a specialist
who has promised to come at once to examine the child. Presently the
doctor arrives. He insists that the wet nurse be dismissed immediately,
as the child would infect her and she in return would infect her own
husband and baby. _Madame Dupont_ is scandalized. What, leave her
precious grandchild! Rob him of the milk he needs!
_Mme. Dupont._ If there is one way to save its life, it is to give
it every possible attention, and you want me to treat it in a way
that you doctors condemn even for healthy children. You think I will
let her die like that! Oh, I shall take good care she does not!
Neglect the one single thing that can save her! It would be
criminal! As for the nurse, we will indemnify her. We will do
everything in our power, everything but that.
_Doctor._ This is not the first time I have found myself in this
situation, and I must begin by telling you that parents who have
refused to be guided by my advice have invariably repented of it
most bitterly.... You propose to profit by her ignorance and her
poverty. Besides, she could obtain the assistance of the court....
You can convince yourself. In one or two cases the parents have been
ordered to pay a yearly pension to the nurse; in the others sums of
money varying from three to eight thousand francs.
_Mme. Dupont._ If we had to fight an action, we should retain the
very best lawyer on our side. Thank heaven we are rich enough. No
doubt he would make it appear doubtful whether the child hadn't
caught this disease from the nurse, rather than the nurse from the
child.
Indeed, what matters a peasant woman! They are so numerous. In vain the
doctor tries to convince _Mme. Dupont_ that it is not a question of
money. It is a question of humanity, of decency; he would not and could
not be a party to such a crime.
After the doctor leaves to examine the child, _Mme. Dupont_ and her
worthy son clinch the bargain with the unsuspecting and ignorant
servant. They tell her that the baby has a cold which it might
communicate to her. The poor peasant girl had lived in the cold all her
life, and as she justly says: "We of the country are not as delicate as
the Parisian ladies." She realizes that a thousand francs would mean a
great fortune to her, and that it would help her people to pay the
mortgage and become independent. She consents to stay and signs away her
health.
The doctor returns with the dreaded news that the child has congenital
syphilis. He informs them that with care and patience the child might be
cured, but that it will have to be put on bottle milk, because otherwise
it would be disastrous to the nurse. When he is told that the nurse has
consented to remain, he grows indignant, declaring:
"You must not ask me to sacrifice the health of a young and strong
woman to that of a sickly infant. I will be no party to giving this
woman a disease that would embitter the lives of her whole family,
and almost certainly render her sterile. Besides, I cannot even do
it from a legal standpoint.... _If you do not consent to have the
child fed by hand, I shall either speak to the nurse or give up the
case._"
But there is no need for the doctor to interfere. Fortunately for the
servant, she discovers the miserable transaction. She learns from the
butler the real condition of the child, and announces to the Duponts
that she must refuse to stay. "I know your brat isn't going to live. I
know it's rotten through and through because its father's got a beastly
disease that he caught from some woman of the streets."
At this terrible moment the unsuspecting, light-headed and light-hearted
mother, _Henriette_, arrives. She overhears the horrible news and falls
screaming to the floor.
The last act takes place in the hospital--the refuge of the unfortunate
victims of poverty, ignorance and false morality. _M. Loche_, the
Deputy, is announced. The doctor is overjoyed because he believes that
the representative of the people comes to inform himself of the causes
of the widespread misery. But he is mistaken. _M. Loche_ is the
father-in-law of _George Dupont_. He wants to secure the signature of
the doctor as evidence in the divorce sought by his daughter.
_Doctor._ I regret that I am unable to furnish you with such a
certificate.... The rule of professional secrecy is absolute. And I
may add that even were I free, I should refuse your request. I
should regret having helped you to obtain a divorce. It would be in
your daughter's own interest that I should refuse. You ask me for a
certificate in order to prove to the court that your son-in-law has
contracted syphilis? You do not consider that in doing so you will
publicly acknowledge that your daughter has been exposed to the
infection. Do you suppose that after that your daughter is likely to
find a second husband?... Do you think that this poor little thing
has not been unlucky enough in her start in life? She has been
blighted physically. You wish besides indelibly to stamp her with
the legal proof of congenital syphilis.
_Loche._ Then what am I to do?
_Doctor._ Forgive.... When the marriage was proposed you doubtless
made inquiries concerning your future son-in-law's income; you
investigated his securities; you satisfied yourself as to his
character. You only omitted one point, but it was the most important
of all: you made no inquiries concerning his health.
_Loche._ No, I did not do that. It is not the custom.... I think a
law should be passed.
_Doctor._ No, no! We want no new laws. There are too many already.
All that is needed is for people to understand the nature of this
disease rather better. It would soon become the custom for a man who
proposed for a girl's hand to add to the other things for which he
is asked a medical statement of bodily fitness, which would make it
certain that he did not bring this plague into the family with
him.... Well, there is one last argument which, since I must, I will
put to you. Are you yourself without sin, that you are so relentless
to others?
_Loche._ I have never had any shameful disease, sir.
_Doctor._ I was not asking you that. I was asking you if you had
never exposed yourself to catching one. Ah, you see! Then it is not
virtue that has saved you; it is luck. Few things exasperate me more
than that term "shameful disease," which you used just now. This
disease is like all other diseases: it is one of our afflictions.
There is no shame in being wretched--even if one deserves to be so.
Come, come, let us have a little plain speaking! I should like to
know how many of these rigid moralists, who are so shocked with
their middle-class prudery, that they dare not mention the name
syphilis, or when they bring themselves to speak of it do so with
expressions of every sort of disgust, and treat its victims as
criminals, have never run the risk of contracting it themselves? It
is those alone who have the right to talk. How many do you think
there are? Four out of a thousand? Well, leave those four aside:
between all the rest and those who catch the disease there is no
difference but chance, and by heavens, those who escape won't get
much sympathy from me: the others at least have paid their fine of
suffering and remorse, while they have gone scot free! Let's have
done, if you please, once for all with this sort of hypocrisy.
The doctor, who is not only a sincere scientist but also a humanitarian,
realizes that as things are to-day no one is exempt from the possibility
of contracting an infection; that those who are responsible for the
spread of the disease are they who constantly excuse themselves with the
inane "I did not know," as if ignorance were not the crime of all
crimes. The doctor demonstrates to _M. Loche_ a number of cases under
his observation, all of them the result of ignorance and of poverty.
There is, for instance, the woman whose husband died of the disease. He
"didn't know"; so he infected her. She, on the other hand, is poor and
cannot afford the treatment she needs. A private physician is beyond her
means, and she has too much pride to stand the indignities heaped upon
the poor who are at the mercy of dispensaries and charity. Therefore she
neglects her disease and perhaps is unconsciously instrumental in
infecting others.
Then there is the man whose young son has contracted the disease. His
father "didn't know," and therefore he did not inform his son, as a
result of which the boy became half paralyzed.
_Man._ We are small trades-people; we have regularly bled ourselves
in order to send him to college, and now--I only wish the same thing
mayn't happen to others. It was at the very college gates that my
poor boy was got hold of by one of these women. Is it right, sir,
that that should be allowed? Aren't there enough police to prevent
children of fifteen from being seduced like that? I ask, is it
right?
The poor man, in his ignorance, did not know that "these women" are the
most victimized, as demonstrated by the doctor himself in the case of
the poor girl of the street. She was both ignorant and innocent when she
found a place as domestic servant and was seduced by her master. Then
she was kicked out into the street, and in her endless search for work
found every door closed in her face. She was compelled to stifle her
feeling of motherhood, to send her baby to a foundling asylum, and
finally, in order to exist, become a street-walker. If in return she
infected the men who came to her, including her erstwhile seducer, she
was only paying back in a small measure what society had done to
her,--the injury, the bitterness, the misery and tears heaped upon her
by a cruel and self-satisfied world.
It is to be expected that a political representative of the people like
_Loche_ should suggest the same stereotyped measures as his
predecessors: legal enactments, prosecution, imprisonment. But the
doctor, a real social student, knows that "the true remedy lies in a
change of our ways."
_Doctor._ Syphilis must cease to be treated like a mysterious evil,
the very name of which cannot be pronounced.... People ought to be
taught that there is nothing immoral in the act that reproduces life
by means of love. But for the benefit of our children we organize
round about it a gigantic conspiracy of silence. A respectable man
will take his son and daughter to one of these grand music halls,
where they will hear things of the most loathsome description; but
he won't let them hear a word spoken seriously on the subject of the
great act of love. The mystery and humbug in which physical facts
are enveloped ought to be swept away and young men be given some
pride in the creative power with which each one of us is endowed.
In other words, what we need is more general enlightenment, greater
frankness and, above all, different social and economic conditions. The
revolutionary significance of "Damaged Goods" consists in the lesson
that not syphilis but the causes that lead to it are the terrible curse
of society. Those who rant against syphilis and clamor for more laws,
for marriage certificates, for registration and segregation, do not
touch even the surface of the evil. Brieux is among the very few modern
dramatists who go to the bottom of this question by insisting on a
complete social and economic change, which alone can free us from the
scourge of syphilis and other social plagues.