the house empty, his soul was tormented by a cruel feeling of loss and
longing. All of a sudden it became clear to him that he loved her with
every fibre of his being. The house seemed desolate; it was just as if
a funeral had taken place. When dinner was served he stared at her
vacant chair and hardly touched his food.
After supper he lit the chandelier in the drawing-room. He sat down in
her corner of the sofa. He fingered her needlework which she had left
behind--it was a tiny jacket for a stranger’s baby in a newly-founded
crèche. There was the needle, still sticking in the calico, just as
she had left it. He pricked his finger with it as if to find solace in
the ecstasy of pain.
Presently he lighted a candle and went into her bedroom. As he stood
on the threshold, he shaded the flame with his hand and looked round
like a man who is about to commit a crime. The room did not betray the
slightest trace of femininity. A narrow bed without curtains; a
writing-table, bookshelves, a smaller table by the side of her bed, a
sofa. Just like his own room. There was no dressing-table, but a
little mirror hung on the wall.
Her dress was hanging on a nail. The lines of her body were clearly
defined on the thick, heavy serge. He caressed the material and hid
his face in the lace which trimmed the neck; he put his arm round the
waist, but the dress collapsed like a phantom. “They say the soul is a
spirit,” he mused, “but then, it ought to be a tangible spirit, at
least.” He approached the bed as if he expected to see an apparition.
He touched everything, took everything in his hand.
At last, as if he were looking for something, something which should
help him to solve the problem, he began to tug at the handles which
ornamented the drawers of her writing-table; all the drawers were
locked. As if by accident he opened the drawer of the little table by
her bedside, and hastily closed it again, but not before he had read
the title on the paper-cover of a small book and caught sight of a few
strange-looking objects, the purpose of which he could guess.
That was it then! _Facultative Sterility!_ What was intended for a
remedy for the lower classes, who have been robbed of the means of
existence, had become an instrument in the service of selfishness, the
last consequence of idealism. Were the upper classes so degenerate
that they refused to reproduce their species, or were they morally
corrupt? They must be both, for they considered it immoral to bring
illegitimate children into the world, and degrading to bear children
in wedlock.
But he wanted children! He could afford to have them, and he considered
it a duty as well as a glorious privilege to pour his individuality into
a new being. It was Nature’s way from a true and healthy egoism towards
altruism. But she travelled on another road and made jackets for the
babies of strangers. Was that a better, a nobler thing to do? It stood
for so much, and yet was nothing but fear of the burden of motherhood,
and it was cheaper and less fatiguing to sit in the corner of a
comfortable sofa and make little jackets than to bear the toil and broil
of a nursery. It was looked upon as a disgrace to be a woman, to have
a sex, to become a mother.
That was it. They called it working for Heaven, for higher interests,
for humanity, but it was merely a pandering to vanity, to selfishness,
to a desire for fame or notoriety.
And he had pitied her, he had suffered remorse because her sterility
had made him angry. She had told him once that he deserved “the contempt
of all good and honest men” because he had failed to speak of sterile
women with the respect due to misfortune; she had told him that they
were sacred, because their sorrow was the bitterest sorrow a woman
could have to bear.
What, after all, was this woman working for? For progress? For the
salvation of humanity? No, she was working against progress, against
freedom and enlightenment. Hadn’t she recently brought forward a motion
to limit religious liberty? Wasn’t she the author of a pamphlet on the
intractability of servants? Wasn’t she advocating greater severity in
the administration of the military laws? Was she not a supporter of the
party which strives to ruin our girls by giving them the same miserable
education which our boys receive?
He hated her soul, for he hated her ideas. And yet he loved her? What
was it then that he loved?
Probably, he reflected, compelled to take refuge in philosophy,
probably the germ of a new being, which she carries in her womb, but
which she is bent on killing.
What else could it be?
But what did she love in him? His title, his position, his influence?
How could these old and worn-out men and women rebuild society?
He meant to tell her all this when she returned home; but in his
inmost soul he knew all the time that the words would never be said.
He knew that he would grovel before her and whine for her favour; that
he would remain her slave and sell her his soul again and again, just
as she sold him her body. He knew that that was what he would do, for
he was head over ears in love with her.
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.