Chapter 9

When the Baron began to talk of things natural and unnatural, the doctor explained to him that if nature were allowed her own way, all noble families would die out and their estates fall to the crown. This was the wisdom of nature, and human civilization was nothing but a foolish struggle against nature, in which man was bound to be beaten. The Baron’s race was doomed; this was proved by the fact that his wife was unable to feed the fruit of her womb; in order to live they were bound to buy or steal the milk of other women. Consequently the race lived on robbery, down to the smallest detail.

“Could the purchase of the milk be called robbery? The purchase of it!”

“Yes, because the money with which it was bought was produced by labour. Whose labour? The people’s! For the aristocracy didn’t work.”

“The doctor was a socialist!”

“No, a follower of Darwin. However, he didn’t care in the least if they called him a socialist. It made no difference to him.”

“But surely, purchase was not robbery! That was too strong a word!”

“Well, but if one paid with money one hadn’t earned!”

“That was to say, earned by manual labour?”

“Yes!”

“But in that case the doctor was a robber too!”

“Quite so! Nevertheless he would not hold back with the truth! Didn’t the Baron remember the repenting thief who had spoken such true words?”

The conversation was interrupted; the Baron sent for a famous professor. The latter called him a murderer straight out, because he had not engaged a nurse long ago.

The Baron had to persuade his wife. He had to retract all his former arguments and emphasize the one simple fact, namely, the love for his child, (regulated by the law of entail).

But where was a foster mother to come from? It was no use thinking of looking for one in town, for there all people were corrupt. No, it would have to be a country girl. But the Baroness objected to a girl because, she argued, a girl with a baby was an immoral person; and her son might contract a hereditary tendency.

The doctor retorted that all foster mothers were unmarried women and that if the young Baron inherited from her a preference for the other sex, he would grow into a good fellow; tendencies of that sort ought to be encouraged. It was not likely that any of the farmers’ wives would accept the position, because a farmer who owned land, would certainly prefer to keep his wife and children with him.

“But supposing they married a girl to a farm labourer?”

“It would mean a delay of nine months.”

“But supposing they found a husband for a girl who had a baby?”

“That wasn’t a bad idea!”

The Baron knew a girl who had a baby just three months old. He knew her only too well, for he had been engaged for three years and had been unfaithful to his fiancee by “doctor’s orders.” He went to her himself and made his suggestion. She should have a farm of her own if she would consent to marry Anders, a farm labourer, and come to the Manor as foster mother to the young Baron. Well, was it strange that she should accept the proffered settlement in preference to her bearing her disgrace alone? It was arranged there and then that on the following Sunday the banns should be read for the first, second and third time, and that Anders should go home to his own village for two months.

The Baron looked at her baby with a strange feeling of envy. He was a big, strong boy. He was not beautiful, but he looked like a guarantee of many generations to come. The child was born to live but it was not his fate to fulfil his destination.

Anna wept when he was taken to the orphanage, but the good food at the Manor (her dinner was sent up to her from the dining-room, and she had as much porter and wine as she wanted) consoled her. She was also allowed to go out driving in the big carriage, with a footman by the side of the coachman. And she read _A Thousand and One Nights_. Never in all her life had she been so well off.

After an absence of two months Anders returned. He had done nothing but eat, drink, and rest. He took possession of the farm, but he also wanted his Anna. Couldn’t she, at least, come and see him sometimes? No, the Baroness objected. No nonsense of that sort!

Anna lost flesh and the little Baron screamed. The doctor was consulted.

“Let her go and see her husband,” he said.

“But supposing it did the baby harm?”

“It won’t!”

But Anders must be “analysed” first. Anders objected.

Anders received a present of a few sheep and was “analysed.”

The little Baron stopped screaming.

But now news came from the orphanage that Anna’s boy had died of diphtheria.

Anna fretted, and the little Baron screamed louder than ever. She was discharged and sent back to Anders and a new foster mother was engaged.

Anders was glad to have his wife with him at last, but she had contracted expensive habits. She couldn’t drink Brazilian coffee, for instance, it had to be Java. And her health did not permit her to eat fish six times a week, nor could she work in the fields. Food at the farm grew scarce.

Anders would have been obliged to give up the farm after twelve months, but the Baron had a kindly feeling for him and allowed him to stay on as a tenant.

Anna worked daily at the Manor and frequently saw the little Baron; but he did not recognise her and it was just as well that he did not. And yet he had lain at her breast! And she had saved his life by sacrificing the life of her own child. But she was prolific and had several sons, who grew up and were labourers and railway men; one of them was a convict.

But the old Baron looked forward with anxiety to the day on which his son should marry and have children in his turn. He did not look strong! He would have been far more reassured if the other little Baron, the one who had died at the orphanage, had been the heir to the estates. And when he read _The Slaves of Life_ a second time, he had to admit that the upper classes live at the mercy of the lower classes, and when he read Darwin again he could not deny that natural selection, in our time, was anything but natural. But facts were facts and remained unalterable, in spite of all the doctor and the socialists might say to the contrary.

AN ATTEMPT AT REFORM

She had noticed with indignation that girls were solely brought up to be housekeepers for their future husbands. Therefore she had learnt a trade which would enable her to keep herself in all circumstances of life. She made artificial flowers.

He had noticed with regret that girls simply waited for a husband who should keep them; he resolved to marry a free and independent woman who could earn her own living; such a woman would be his equal and a companion for life, not a housekeeper.

Fate ordained that they should meet. He was an artist and she, as I already mentioned, made flowers; they were both living in Paris at the time when they conceived these ideas.

There was style in their marriage. They took three rooms at Passy. In the centre was the studio, to the right of it his room, to the left hers. This did away with the common bed-room and double bed, that abomination which has no counterpart in nature and is responsible for a great deal of dissipation and immorality. It moreover did away with the inconvenience of having to dress and undress in the same room. It was far better that each of them should have a separate room and that the studio should be a neutral, common meeting-place.

They required no servant; they were going to do the cooking themselves and employ an old charwoman in the mornings and evenings. It was all very well thought out and excellent in theory.

“But supposing you had children?” asked the sceptics.

“Nonsense, there won’t be any!”

It worked splendidly. He went to the market in the morning and did the catering. Then he made the coffee. She made the beds and put the rooms in order. And then they sat down and worked.

When they were tired of working they gossiped, gave one another good advice, laughed and were very jolly.

At twelve o’clock he lit the kitchen fire and she prepared the vegetables. He cooked the beef, while she ran across the street to the grocer’s; then she laid the table and he dished up the dinner.

Of course, they loved one another as husbands and wives do. They said good-night to each other and went into their own rooms, but there was no lock to keep him out when he knocked at her door; but the accommodation was small and the morning found them in their own quarters. Then he knocked at the wall:

“Good morning, little girlie, how are you to-day?”

“Very well, darling, and you?”

Their meeting at breakfast was always like a new experience which never grew stale.

They often went out together in the evening and frequently met their countrymen. She had no objection to the smell of tobacco, and was never in the way. Everybody said that it was an ideal marriage; no one had ever known a happier couple.

But the young wife’s parents, who lived a long way off, were always writing and asking all sorts of indelicate questions; they were longing to have a grandchild. Louisa ought to remember that the institution of marriage existed for the benefit of the children, not the parents. Louisa held that this view was an old-fashioned one. Mama asked her whether she did not think that the result of the new ideas would be the complete extirpation of mankind? Louisa had never looked at it in that light, and moreover the question did not interest her. Both she and her husband were happy; at last the spectacle of a happy married couple was presented to the world, and the world was envious.

Life was very pleasant. Neither of them was master and they shared expenses. Now he earned more, now she did, but in the end their contributions to the common fund amounted to the same figure.

Then she had a birthday! She was awakened in the morning by the entrance of the charwoman with a bunch of flowers and a letter painted all over with flowers, and containing the following words:

“To the lady flower-bud from her dauber, who wishes her many happy returns of the day and begs her to honour him with her company at an excellent little breakfast--at once.”

She knocked at his door--come in!

And they breakfasted, sitting on the bed--his bed; and the charwoman was kept the whole day to do all the work. It was a lovely birthday!

Their happiness never palled. It lasted two years. All the prophets had prophesied falsely.

It was a model marriage!

But when two years had passed, the young wife fell ill. She put it down to some poison contained in the wall-paper; he suggested germs of some sort. Yes, certainly, germs. But something was wrong. Something was not as it should be. She must have caught cold. Then she grew stout. Was she suffering from tumour? Yes, they were afraid she was.

She consulted a doctor--and came home crying. It was indeed a growth, but one which would one day see daylight, grow into a flower and bear fruit.

The husband did anything but cry. He found style in it, and then the wretch went to his club and boasted about it to his friends. But the wife still wept. What would her position be now? She would soon not be able to earn money with her work and then she would have to live on him. And they would have to have a servant! Ugh! those servants!

All their care, their caution, their wariness had been wrecked on the rock of the inevitable.

But the mother-in-law wrote enthusiastic letters and repeated over and over again that marriage was instituted by God for the protection of the children; the parents’ pleasure counted for very little.

Hugo implored her to forget the fact that she would not be able to earn anything in future. Didn’t she do her full share of the work by mothering the baby? Wasn’t that as good as money? Money was, rightly understood, nothing but work. Therefore she paid her share in full.

It took her a long time to get over the fact that he had to keep her. But when the baby came, she forgot all about it. She remained his wife and companion as before in addition to being the mother of his child, and he found that this was worth more than anything else.

A NATURAL OBSTACLE

Her father had insisted on her learning book-keeping, so that she might escape the common lot of young womanhood; to sit there and wait for a husband.

She was now employed as book-keeper in the goods department of the Railways, and was universally looked upon as a very capable young woman. She had a way of getting on with people, and her prospects were excellent.

Then she met the green forester from the School of Forestry and married him. They had made up their minds not to have any children; theirs was to be a true, spiritual marriage, and the world was to be made to realise that a woman, too, has a soul, and is not merely sex. Husband and wife met at dinner in the evening. It really was a true marriage, the union of two souls; it was, of course, also the union of two bodies, but this is a point one does not discuss.

One day the wife came home and told her husband that her office hours had been changed. The directors had decided to run a new night train to Malmo, and in future she would have to be at her office from six to nine in the evening. It was a nuisance, for he could not come home before six. That was quite impossible.

Henceforth they had to dine separately and meet only at night. He was dissatisfied. He hated the long evenings.

He fell into the habit of calling for her. But he found it dull to sit on a chair in the goods department and have the porters knocking against him. He was always in the way. And when he tried to talk to her as she sat at her desk with the penholder behind her ear, she interrupted him with a curt:

“Oh! do be quiet until I’ve done!”

Then the porters turned away their faces and he could see by their backs that they were laughing.

Sometimes one or the other of her colleagues announced him with a:

“Your husband is waiting for you, Mrs. X.”

“Your husband!” There was something scornful in the very way in which they pronounced the word.

But what irritated him more than anything else was the fact that the desk nearest to her was occupied by a “young ass” who was always gazing into her eyes and everlastingly consulting the ledger, bending over her shoulders so that he almost touched her with his chin. And they talked of invoices and certificates, of things which might have meant anything for all he knew. And they compared papers and figures and seemed to be on more familiar terms with one another than husband and wife were. And that was quite natural, for she saw more of the young ass than of her husband. It struck him that their marriage was not a true spiritual marriage after all; in order to be that he, too, would have had to be employed in the goods department. But as it happened he was at the School of Forestry.

One day, or rather one night, she told him that on the following Saturday a meeting of railway employés, which was to conclude with a dinner, would be held, and that she would have to be present. Her husband received the communication with a little air of constraint.

“Do you want to go?” he asked naïvely.

“Of course, I do!”

“But you will be the only woman amongst so many men, and when men have had too much to drink, they are apt to become coarse.”

“Don’t you attend the meetings of the School of Forestry without me?”

“Certainly, but I am not the only man amongst a lot of women.”

“Men and women were equals, she was amazed that he, who had always preached the emancipation of women could have any objection to her attending the meeting.”

“He admitted that it was nothing but prejudice on his part. He admitted that she was right and that he was wrong, but all the same he begged her not to go; he hated the idea. He couldn’t get over the fact.”

“He was inconsequent.”

“He admitted that he was inconsequent, but it would take ten generations to get used to the new conditions.”

“Then he must not go to meetings either?”

“That was quite a different matter, for his meetings were attended by men only. He didn’t mind her going out without him; what he didn’t like was that she went out alone with so many men.”

“She wouldn’t be alone, for the cashier’s wife would be present as--”

“As what?”

“As the cashier’s wife.”

“Then couldn’t he be present as her husband?”

“Why did he want to make himself so cheap by being in the way?”

“He didn’t mind making himself cheap.”

“Was he jealous?”

“Yes! Why not? He was afraid that something might come between them.”

“What a shame to be jealous! What an insult! What distrust! What did he think of her?”

“That she was perfect. He would prove it. She could go alone!” “Could she really? How condescending of him!”

She went. She did not come home until the early hours of the morning. She awakened her husband and told him how well it had all gone off. He was delighted to hear it. Somebody had made a speech about her; they had sung quartets and ended with a dance.

“And how had she come home?”

“The young ass had accompanied her to the front door.”

“Supposing anybody who knew them had seen her at three o’clock in the morning in the company of the young ass?”

“Well, and what then? She was a respectable woman.”

“Yes, but she might easily lose her reputation.”

“Ah! He was jealous, and what was even worse, he was envious. He grudged her every little bit of fun. That was what being married meant! To be scolded if one dared to go out and enjoy oneself a little. What a stupid institution marriage was! But was their union a true marriage? They met one another at night, just as other married couples did. Men were all alike. Civil enough until they were married, but afterwards, oh! Afterwards.... Her husband was no better than other men: he looked upon her as his property, he thought he had a right to order her about.”

“It was true. There was a time when he had believed that they belonged to one another, but he had made a mistake. He belonged to her as a dog belonged to its master. What was he but her footman, who called for her at night to see her home? He was ‘her husband.’ But did she want to be ‘his wife’? Were they equals?”

“She hadn’t come home to quarrel with him. She wanted to be nothing but his wife, and she did not want him to be anything but her husband.”

The effect of the champagne, he thought, and turned to the wall.

She cried and begged him not to be unjust, but to--forgive her.

He pulled the blankets over his ears.

She asked him again if he--if he didn’t want her to be his wife any more?

“Yes, of course, he wanted her! But he had been so dreadfully bored all the evening, he could never live through another evening like it.”

“Let them forget all about it then!”

And they forgot all about it and continued loving one another.

On the following evening, when the green forester came for his wife, he was told that she had gone to the store rooms. He was alone in the counting-house and sat down on a chair. Presently a glass door was opened and the young ass put in his head: “Are you here, Annie?”

No, it was only her husband!

He rose and went away. The young ass called his wife Annie, and was evidently on very familiar terms with her. It was more than he could bear.

When she came home they had a scene. She reproached him with the fact that he did not take his views on the emancipation of women seriously, otherwise he could not be annoyed at her being on familiar terms with her fellow-clerks. He made matters worse by admitting that his views were not to be taken seriously.

“Surely he didn’t mean what he was saying! Had he changed his mind? How could he!”

“Yes, he had changed his mind. One could not help modifying one’s views almost daily, because one had to adapt them to the conditions of life which were always changing. And if he had believed in spiritual marriages in the days gone by, he had now come to lose faith in marriages of any sort whatever. That was progress in the direction of radicalism. And as to the spiritual, she was spiritually married to the young ass rather than to him, for they exchanged views on the management of the goods department daily and hourly, while she took no interest at all in the cultivation of forests. Was there anything spiritual in their marriage? Was there?”

“No, not any longer! Her love was dead! He had killed it when he renounced his splendid faith in--the emancipation of women.”

Matters became more and more unbearable. The green forester began to look to his fellow-foresters for companionship and gave up thinking of the goods department and its way of conducting business, matters which he never understood.

“You don’t understand me,” she kept on saying over and over again.

“No, I don’t understand the goods department,” he said.

One night, or rather one morning, he told her that he was going botanising with a girls’ class. He was teaching botany in a girls’ school.

“Oh! indeed! Why had he never mentioned it before? Big girls?”

“Oh! very big ones. From sixteen to twenty.”

“H’m! In the morning?”

“No! In the afternoon! And they would have supper in one of the outlying little villages.”

“Would they? The head-mistress would be there of course?”

“Oh! no, she had every confidence in him, since he was a married man. It was an advantage, sometimes, to be married.”

On the next day she was ill.

“Surely he hadn’t the heart to leave her!”

“He must consider his work before anything else. Was she very ill?”

“Oh! terribly ill!”

In spite of her objections he sent for a doctor. The doctor declared that there was nothing much the matter; it was quite unnecessary for the husband to stay at home. The green forester returned towards morning. He was in high spirits. He had enjoyed himself immensely! He had not had such a day for a long, long time.

The storm burst. Huhuhu! This struggle was too much for her! He must swear a solemn oath never to love any woman but her. Never!

She had convulsions; he ran for the smelling salts.

He was too generous to give her details of the supper with the schoolgirls, but he could not forego the pleasure of mentioning his former simile anent dogs and possession, and he took the occasion to draw her attention to the fact that love without the conception of a right to possession--on both sides--was not thinkable. What was making her cry? The same thing which had made him swear, when she went out with twenty men. The fear of losing him! But one can lose only that which one possesses! Possesses!

Thus the rent was repaired. But goods department and girls’ school were ready with their scissors to undo the laborious mending.

The harmony was disturbed.

The wife fell ill. She was sure that she had hurt herself in lifting a case which was too heavy for her. She was so keen on her work that she could not bear to wait while the porters stood about and did nothing. She was compelled to lend a hand. Now she must have ruptured herself.

Yes, indeed, there was something the matter!

How angry she was! Angry with her husband who alone was to blame. What were they going to do with the baby? It would have to be boarded out! Rousseau had done that. It was true, he was a fool, but on this particular point he was right.

She was full of fads and fancies. The forester had to resign his lessons at the girls’ school at once.

She chafed and fretted because she was no longer able to go into the store rooms, but compelled to stay in the counting-house all day long and make entries. But the worst blow which befell her was the arrival of an assistant whose secret mission it was to take her place when she would be laid up.

The manner of her colleagues had changed, too. The porters grinned. She felt ashamed and longed to hide herself. It would be better to stay at home and cook her husband’s dinner than sit here and be stared at. Oh! What black chasms of prejudice lay concealed in the deceitful hearts of men!