George lived with his mother after Henriette had left his home. He was
wretchedly unhappy and lonely. He could find no interest in any of the
things which had pleased him before. He was ashamed to meet any of his
friends, because he imagined that everyone must have heard the dreadful
story--or because he was not equal to making up explanations for his
mournful state. He no longer cared much about his work. What was the
use of making a reputation or earning large fees when one had nothing to
spend them for?
All his thoughts were fixed upon the wife and child he had lost. He was
reminded of Henriette in a thousand ways, and each way brought him a
separate pang of grief. He had never realized how much he had come to
depend upon her in every little thing--until now, when her companionship
was withdrawn from him, and everything seemed to be a blank. He would
come home at night, and opposite to him at the dinner-table would be his
mother, silent and spectral. How different from the days when Henriette
was there, radiant and merry, eager to be told everything that had
happened to him through the day!
There was also his worry about little Gervaise. He might no longer hear
how she was doing, for he could not get up courage to ask his mother
the news. Thus poor George was paying for his sins. He could make no
complaints against the price, however high--only sometimes he
wondered whether he would be able to pay it. There were times of such
discouragement that he thought of different ways of killing himself.
A curious adventure befell him during this period. He was walking one
day in the park, when he saw approaching a girl whose face struck him as
familiar. At first he could not recollect where he had seen her. It was
only when she was nearly opposite him that he realized--it was the girl
who had been the cause of all his misery!
He tried to look away, but he was too late. Her eyes had caught his, and
she nodded and then stopped, exclaiming, “Why, how do you do?”
George had to face her. “How do you do?” he responded, weakly.
She held out her hand and he had to take it, but there was not much
welcome in his clasp. “Where have you been keeping yourself?” she asked.
Then, as he hesitated, she laughed good-naturedly, “What’s the matter?
You don’t seem glad to see me.”
The girl--Therese was her name--had a little package under her arm, as
if she had been shopping. She was not well dressed, as when George had
met her before, and doubtless she thought that was the reason for his
lack of cordiality. This made him rather ashamed, and so, only half
realizing what he was doing, he began to stroll along with her.
“Why did you never come to see me again?” she asked.
George hesitated. “I--I--” he stammered--“I’ve been married since then.”
She laughed. “Oh! So that’s it!” And then, as they came to a bench under
some trees, “Won’t you sit down a while?” There was allurement in her
glance, but it made George shudder. It was incredible to him that he
had ever been attracted by this crude girl. The spell was now broken
completely.
She quickly saw that something was wrong. “You don’t seem very
cheerful,” she said. “What’s the matter?”
And the man, staring at her, suddenly blurted out, “Don’t you know what
you did to me?”
“What I did to you?” Therese repeated wonderingly.
“You must know!” he insisted.
And then she tried to meet his gaze and could not. “Why--” she
stammered.
There was silence between them. When George spoke again his voice was
low and trembling. “You ruined my whole life,” he said--“not only mine,
but my family’s. How could you do it?”
She strove to laugh it off. “A cheerful topic for an afternoon stroll!”
For a long while George did not answer. Then, almost in a whisper, he
repeated, “How could you do it?”
“Some one did it to me first,” was the response. “A man!”
“Yes,” said George, “but he didn’t know.”
“How can you tell whether he knew or not?”
“You knew?” he inquired, wonderingly.
Therese hesitated. “Yes, I knew,” she said at last, defiantly. “I have
known for years.”
“And I’m not the only man.”
She laughed. “I guess not!”
There followed a long pause. At last he resumed, “I don’t want to blame
you; there’s nothing to be gained by that; it’s done, and can’t
be undone. But sometimes I wonder about it. I should like to
understand--why did you do it?”
“Why? That’s easy enough. I did it because I have to live.”
“You live that way?” he exclaimed.
“Why of course. What did you think?”
“I thought you were a--a--” He hesitated.
“You thought I was respectable,” laughed Therese. “Well, that’s just a
little game I was playing on you.”
“But I didn’t give you any money!” he argued.
“Not that time,” she said, “but I thought you would come back.”
He sat gazing at her. “And you earn your living that way still?” he
asked. “When you know what’s the matter with you! When you know--”
“What can I do? I have to live, don’t I?”
“But don’t you even take care of yourself? Surely there must be some
way, some place--”
“The reformatory, perhaps,” she sneered. “No, thanks! I’ll go there
when the police catch me, not before. I know some girls that have tried
that.”
“But aren’t you afraid?” cried the man. “And the things that will happen
to you! Have you ever talked to a doctor--or read a book?”
“I know,” she said. “I’ve seen it all. If it comes to me, I’ll go over
the side of one of the bridges some dark night.”
George sat lost in thought. A strange adventure it seemed to him--to
meet this girl under such different circumstances! It was as if he were
watching a play from behind the scenes instead of in front. If only he
had had this new view in time--how different would have been his life!
And how terrible it was to think of the others who didn’t know--the
audience who were still sitting out in front, watching the spectacle,
interested in it!
His thoughts came back to Therese. He was curious about her and the life
she lived. “Tell me a little about it,” he said. “How you came to be
doing this.” And he added, “Don’t think I want to preach; I’d really
like to understand.”
“Oh, it’s a common story,” she said--“nothing especially romantic.
I came to Paris when I was a girl. My parents had died, and I had no
friends, and I didn’t know what to do. I got a place as a nursemaid.
I was seventeen years old then, and I didn’t know anything. I believed
what I was told, and I believed my employer. His wife was ill in a
hospital, and he said he wanted to marry me when she died. Well, I liked
him, and I was sorry for him--and then the first thing I knew I had a
baby. And then the wife came back, and I was turned off. I had been a
fool, of course. If I had been in her place should have done just what
she did.”
The girl was speaking in a cold, matter-of-fact voice, as of things
about which she was no longer able to suffer. “So, there I was--on the
street,” she went on. “You have always had money, a comfortable home,
education, friends to help you--all that. You can’t imagine how it is
to be in the world without any of these things. I lived on my savings as
long as I could; then I had to leave my baby in a foundling’s home, and
I went out to do my five hours on the boulevards. You know the game, I
have no doubt.”
Yes, George knew the game. Somehow or other he no longer felt bitter
towards this poor creature. She was part of the system of which he was
a victim also. There was nothing to be gained by hating each other.
Just as the doctor said, what was needed was enlightenment. “Listen,” he
said, “why don’t you try to get cured?”
“I haven’t got the price,” was the answer.
“Well,” he said, hesitatingly, “I know a doctor--one of the really good
men. He has a free clinic, and I’ve no doubt he would take you in if I
asked him to.”
“YOU ask him?” echoed the other, looking at George in surprise.
The young man felt somewhat uncomfortable. He was not used to playing
the role of the good Samaritan. “I--I need not tell him about us,” he
stammered. “I could just say that I met you. I have had such a wretched
time myself, I feel sorry for anybody that’s in the same plight. I
should like to help you if I could.”
The girl sat staring before her, lost in thought. “I have treated you
badly, I guess,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’m ashamed of myself.”
George took a pencil and paper from his pocket and wrote the doctor’s
address. “Here it is,” he said, in a business-like way, because he felt
that otherwise he could become sentimental. He was half tempted to tell
the woman what had happened to him, and all about Henriette and the
sick child; but he realized that that would not do. So he rose and shook
hands with her and left.
The next time he saw the doctor he told him about this girl. He decided
to tell him the truth--having already made so many mistakes trying
to conceal things. The doctor agreed to treat the woman, making the
condition that George promise not to see her again.
The young man was rather shocked at this. “Doctor,” he exclaimed, “I
assure you you are mistaken. The thing you have in mind would be utterly
impossible.”
“I know,” said the other, “you think so. But I think, young man, that
I know more about life than you do. When a man and a woman have once
committed such a sin, it is easy for them to slip back. The less time
they spend talking about their misfortunes, and being generous and
forbearing to each other, the better for them both.”
“But, Doctor,” cried George. “I love Henriette! I could not possibly
love anyone else. It would be horrible to me!”
“Yes,” said the doctor. “But you are not living with Henriette. You are
wandering round, not knowing what to do with yourself next.”
There was no need for anybody to tell George that. “What do you think?”
he asked abruptly. “Is there any hope for me?”
“I think there is,” said the other, who, in spite of his resolution, had
become a sort of ambassador for the unhappy husband. He had to go to
the Loches house to attend the child, and so he could not help seeing
Henriette, and talking to her about the child’s health and her own
future. He considered that George had had his lesson, and urged upon the
young wife that he would be wiser in future, and safe to trust.
George had indeed learned much. He got new lessons every time he went to
call at the physician’s office--he could read them in the faces of the
people he saw there. One day when he was alone in the waiting-room, the
doctor came out of his inner office, talking to an elderly gentleman,
whom George recognized as the father of one of his classmates at
college. The father was a little shopkeeper, and the young man
remembered how pathetically proud he had been of his son. Could it be,
thought George, that this old man was a victim of syphilis?
But it was the son, and not the father, who was the subject of the
consultation. The old man was speaking in a deeply moved voice, and he
stood so that George could not help hearing what he said. “Perhaps you
can’t understand,” he said, “just what it means to us--the hopes we had
of that boy! Such a fine fellow he was, and a good fellow, too, sir! We
were so proud of him; we had bled our veins to keep him in college--and
now just see!”
“Don’t despair, sir,” said the doctor, “we’ll try to cure him.” And he
added with that same note of sorrow in his voice which George had heard,
“Why did you wait so long before you brought the boy to me?”
“How was I to know what he had?” cried the other. “He didn’t dare tell
me, sir--he was afraid of my scolding him. And in the meantime the
disease was running its course. When he realized that he had it, he went
secretly to one of the quacks, who robbed him, and didn’t cure him. You
know how it is, sir.”
“Yes, I know,” said the doctor.
“Such things ought not to be permitted,” cried the old man. “What is
our government about that it allows such things to go on? Take the
conditions there at the college where my poor boy was ruined. At the
very gates of the building these women are waiting for the lads! Ought
they to be permitted to debauch young boys only fifteen years old?
Haven’t we got police enough to prevent a thing like that? Tell me,
sir!”
“One would think so,” said the doctor, patiently.
“But is it that the police don’t want to?”
“No doubt they have the same excuse as all the rest--they don’t know.
Take courage, sir; we have cured worse cases than your son’s. And some
day, perhaps, we shall be able to change these conditions.”
So he went on with the man, leaving George with something to think
about. How much he could have told them about what had happened to that
young fellow when only fifteen years old! It had not been altogether the
fault of the women who were lurking outside of the college gates; it was
a fact that the boy’s classmates had teased him and ridiculed him, had
literally made his life a torment, until he had yielded to temptation.
It was the old, old story of ignorant and unguided schoolboys all over
the world! They thought that to be chaste was to be weak and foolish;
that a fellow was not a man unless he led a life of debauchery like the
rest. And what did they know about these dreadful diseases? They had the
most horrible superstitions--ideas of cures so loathsome that they could
not be set down in print; ideas as ignorant and destructive as those
of savages in the heart of Africa. And you might hear them laughing
and jesting about one another’s condition. They might be afflicted with
diseases which would have the most terrible after-effects upon their
whole lives and upon their families--diseases which cause tens of
thousands of surgical operations upon women, and a large percentage of
blindness and idiocy in children--and you might hear them confidently
express the opinion that these diseases were no worse than a bad cold!
And all this mass of misery and ignorance covered over and clamped
down by a taboo of silence, imposed by the horrible superstition of
sex-prudery! George went out from the doctor’s office trembling with
excitement over this situation. Oh, why had not some one warned him in
time? Why didn’t the doctors and the teachers lift up their voices and
tell young men about these frightful dangers? He wanted to go out in
the highways and preach it himself--except that he dared not, because he
could not explain to the world his own sudden interest in this forbidden
topic.
These was only one person he dared to talk to: that was his mother--to
whom he ought to have talked many, many years before. He was moved to
mention to her the interview he had overheard in the doctor’s office. In
a sudden burst of grief he told her of his struggles and temptations; he
pleaded with her to go to Henriette once more--to tell her these things,
and try to make her realize that he alone was not to blame for them,
that they were a condition which prevailed everywhere, that the only
difference between her husband and other men was that he had had the
misfortune to be caught.
There was pressure being applied to Henriette from several sides. After
all, what could she do? She was comfortable in her father’s home, so far
as the physical side of things went; but she knew that all her friends
were gossiping and speculating about her separation from her husband,
and sooner or later she would have to make up her mind, either to
separate permanently from George or to return to him. There was not much
happiness for her in the thought of getting a divorce from a man whom
deep in her heart she loved. She would be practically a widow the rest
of her life, and the home in which poor little Gervaise would be brought
up would not be a cheerful one.
George was ready to offer any terms, if only she would come back to his
home. They might live separate lives for as long as Henriette wished.
They would have no more children until the doctor declared it was quite
safe; and in the meantime he would be humble and patient, and would try
his best to atone for the wrong that he had done her.
To these arguments Madame Dupont added others of her own. She told the
girl some things which through bitter experience she had learned about
the nature and habits of men; things that should be told to every girl
before marriage, but which almost all of them are left to find out
afterwards, with terrible suffering and disillusionment. Whatever
George’s sins may have been, he was a man who had been chastened by
suffering, and would know how to value a woman’s love for the rest of
his life. Not all men knew that--not even those who had been fortunate
in escaping from the so-called “shameful disease.”
Henriette was also hearing arguments from her father, who by this time
had had time to think things over, and had come to the conclusion
that the doctor was right. He had noted his son-in-law’s patience and
penitence, and had also made sure that in spite of everything Henriette
still loved him. The baby apparently was doing well; and the Frenchman,
with his strong sense of family ties, felt it a serious matter to
separate a child permanently from its father. So in the end he cast
the weight of his influence in favor of a reconciliation, and Henriette
returned to her husband, upon terms which the doctor laid down.
The doctor played in these negotiations the part which he had not been
allowed to play in the marriage. For the deputy was now thoroughly awake
to the importance of the duty he owed his daughter. In fact, he had
become somewhat of a “crank” upon the whole subject. He had attended
several of the doctor’s clinics, and had read books and pamphlets on the
subject of syphilis, and was now determined that there should be some
practical steps towards reform.
At the outset, he had taken the attitude of the average legislator, that
the thing to do was to strengthen the laws against prostitution, and to
enforce them more strictly. He echoed the cry of the old man whom George
had heard in the doctor’s office: “Are there not enough police?”
“We must go to the source,” he declared. “We must proceed against these
miserable women--veritable poisoners that they are!”
He really thought this was going to the source! But the doctor was quick
to answer his arguments. “Poisoners?” he said. “You forget that they
have first been poisoned. Every one of these women who communicates the
disease has first received it from some man.”
Monsieur Loches advanced to his second idea, to punish the men. But the
doctor had little interest in this idea either. He had seen it tried so
many times--such a law could never be enforced. What must come first was
education, and by this means a modification of morals. People must cease
to treat syphilis as a mysterious evil, of which not even the name could
be pronounced.
“But,” objected the other, “one cannot lay it bare to children in our
educational institutions!”
“Why not?” asked the doctor.
“Because, sir, there are curiosities which it would be imprudent to
awaken.”
The doctor became much excited whenever he heard this argument. “You
believe that you are preventing these curiosities from awakening?”
he demanded. “I appeal to those--both men and women--who have passed
through colleges and boarding schools! Such curiosities cannot be
smothered, and they satisfy themselves as best they can, basely,
vilely. I tell you, sir, there is nothing immoral about the act which
perpetuates life by means of love. But we organize around it, so far as
concerns our children, a gigantic and rigorous conspiracy of silence.
The worthy citizen takes his daughter and his son to popular musical
comedies, where they listen to things which would make a monkey blush;
but it is forbidden to discuss seriously before the young that act
of love which people seem to think they should only know of through
blasphemies and profanations! Either that act is a thing of which
people can speak without blushing--or else, sir, it is a matter for
the innuendoes of the cabaret and the witticisms of the messroom!
Pornography is admitted, but science is not! I tell you, sir, that is
the thing which must be changed! We must elevate the soul of the young
man by taking these facts out of the realm of mystery and of slang. We
must awaken in him a pride in that creative power with which each one of
us is endowed. We must make him understand that he is a sort of temple
in which is prepared the future of the race, and we must teach him that
he must transmit, intact, the heritage entrusted to him--the precious
heritage which has been built out of the tears and miseries and
sufferings of an interminable line of ancestors!”
So the doctor argued. He brought forth case after case to prove that the
prostitute was what she was, not because of innate vileness, but because
of economic conditions. It happened that the deputy came to one of the
clinics where he met Therese. The doctor brought her into his consulting
room, after telling her that the imposing-looking gentleman was a friend
of the director of the opera, and might be able to recommend her for
a position on the stage to which she aspired. “Tell him all about
yourself,” he said, “how you live, and what you do, and what you would
like to do. You will get him interested in you.”
So the poor girl retold the story of her life. She spoke in a
matter-of-fact voice, and when she came to tell how she had been obliged
to leave her baby in the foundling asylum, she was surprised that
Monsieur Loches showed horror. “What could I do?” she demanded. “How
could I have taken care of it?”
“Didn’t you ever miss it?” he asked.
“Of course I missed it. But what difference did that make? It would have
died of hunger with me.”
“Still,” he said, “it was your child--”
“It was the father’s child, too, wasn’t it? Much attention he paid to
it! If I had been sure of getting money enough, I would have put it out
to nurse. But with the twenty-five or thirty francs a month I could have
earned as a servant, could I have paid for a baby? That’s the situation
a girl faces--so long as I wanted to remain honest, it was impossible
for me to keep my child. You answer, perhaps, ‘You didn’t stay honest
anyway.’ That’s true. But then--when you are hungry, and a nice young
fellow offers you dinner, you’d have to be made of wood to refuse him.
Of course, if I had had a trade--but I didn’t have any. So I went on the
street--You know how it is.”
“Tell us about it,” said the doctor. “This gentleman is from the
country.”
“Is that so?” said the girl. “I never supposed there was anyone who
didn’t know about such things. Well, I took the part of a little
working-girl. A very simple dress--things I had made especially for
that--a little bundle in a black napkin carried in my hand--so I walked
along where the shops are. It’s tiresome, because to do it right, you
have to patter along fast. Then I stop before a shop, and nine times out
of ten, there you are! A funny thing is that the men--you’d imagine
they had agreed on the words to approach you with. They have only two
phrases; they never vary them. It’s either, ‘You are going fast, little
one.’ Or it’s, ‘Aren’t you afraid all alone?’ One thing or the other.
One knows pretty well what they mean. Isn’t it so?” The girl paused,
then went on. “Again, I would get myself up as a young widow. There,
too, one has to walk fast: I don’t know why that should be so, but it
is. After a minute or two of conversation, they generally find out that
I am not a young widow, but that doesn’t make any difference--they go on
just the same.”
“Who are the men?” asked the deputy. “Clerks? Traveling salesmen?”
“Not much,” she responded. “I keep a lookout for gentlemen--like
yourself.”
“They SAY they are gentlemen,” he suggested.
“Sometimes I can see it,” was the response. “Sometimes they wear orders.
It’s funny--if they have on a ribbon when you first notice them, they
follow you, and presto--the ribbon is gone! I always laugh over that.
I’ve watched them in the glass of the shop windows. They try to look
unconcerned, but as they walk along they snap out the ribbon with their
thumb--as one shells little peas, you know.”
She paused; then, as no one joined in her laugh, she continued, “Well,
at last the police got after me, That’s a story that I’ve never been
able to understand. Those filthy men gave me a nasty disease, and then I
was to be shut in prison for it! That was a little too much, it seems to
me.”
“Well,” said the doctor, grimly, “you revenged yourself on them--from
what you have told me.”
The other laughed. “Oh, yes,” she said. “I had my innings.” She turned
to Monsieur Loches. “You want me to tell you that? Well, just on the
very day I learned that the police were after me, I was coming home
furious, naturally. It was on the Boulevard St. Denis, if you know the
place--and whom do you think I met? My old master--the one who got me
into trouble, you know. There it was, God’s own will! I said to myself,
‘Now, my good fellow, here’s the time where you pay me what you owe me,
and with interest, too!’ I put on a little smile--oh, it didn’t take
very long, you may be sure!”
The woman paused; her face darkened, and she went on, in a voice
trembling with agitation: “When I had left him, I was seized with a
rage. A sort of madness got into my blood. I took on all the men who
offered themselves, for whatever they offered me, for nothing, if they
didn’t offer me anything. I took as many as I could, the youngest ones
and the handsomest ones. Just so! I only gave them back what they had
given to me. And since that time I haven’t really cared about anyone any
more. I just turned it all into a joke.” She paused, and then looking
at the deputy, and reading in his face the horror with which he was
regarding her, “Oh, I am not the only one!” she exclaimed. “There
are lots of other women who do the same. To be sure, it is not for
vengeance--it is because they must have something to eat. For even if
you have syphilis, you have to eat, don’t you? Eh?”
She had turned to the doctor, but he did not answer. There was a long
silence; and then thinking that his friend, the deputy, had heard enough
for one session, the doctor rose. He dismissed the woman, the cause of
all George Dupont’s misfortunes, and turning to Monsieur Loches, said:
“It was on purpose that I brought that wretched prostitute before
you. In her the whole story is summed up--not merely the story of your
son-in-law, but that of all the victims of the red plague. That woman
herself is a victim, and she is a symbol of the evil which we have
created and which falls upon our own heads again. I could add nothing to
her story, I only ask you, Monsieur Loches--when next you are proposing
new laws in the Chamber of Deputies, not to forget the horrors which
that poor woman has exposed to you!”
End of Project Gutenberg’s Damaged Goods, by Upton Sinclair and Eugene Brieux