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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Married, by August Strindberg
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Married
+
+Author: August Strindberg
+
+
+Release Date: April, 2005 [EBook #7956]
+This file was first posted on June 5, 2003
+Last Updated: May 5, 2013
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARRIED ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Starner, Marc D'Hooghe, Charles Franks
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+MARRIED
+
+By August Strindberg
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+ASRA
+
+LOVE AND BREAD
+
+COMPELLED TO
+
+COMPENSATION
+
+FRICTIONS
+
+UNNATURAL SELECTION
+
+AN ATTEMPT AT REFORM
+
+A NATURAL OBSTACLE
+
+A DOLL'S HOUSE
+
+PHOENIX
+
+ROMEO AND JULIA
+
+PROLIFICACY
+
+AUTUMN
+
+COMPULSORY MARRIAGE
+
+CORINNA
+
+UNMARRIED AND MARRIED
+
+A DUEL
+
+HIS SERVANT
+
+THE BREADWINNER
+
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+
+Strindberg's works in English translation: Plays translated by Edwin
+Bjorkman; _Master Olof_, American Scandinavian Foundation, 1915; _The
+Dream Play, The Link, The Dance of Death_, New York, Charles
+Scribner's Sons, 1912; _Swanwhite, Simoon, Debit and Credit, Advent,
+The Thunderstorm, After the Fire,_ the same, 1913; _There Are Crimes
+and Crimes, Miss Julia, The Stronger, Creditors, Pariah_, the same,
+1913; Bridal Crown, _The Spook Sonata, The First Warning, Gustavus
+Vasa_, the same, 1916. Plays translated by Edith and Warner Oland,
+Boston Luce & Co., Vol. I (1912), _The Father, Countess Julie, The
+Stronger, The Outlaw_; Vol. II (1912), _Facing Death, Easter, Pariah,
+Comrades_; Vol. III (1914), _Swanwhite, Advent, The Storm, Lucky Pehr_,
+tr. by Velma Swanston Howard, Cincinnati, Stewart & Kidd Co., 1912.
+_The Red Room_, tr. by Ellie Schleussner, New York, Putnam's, 1913;
+_Confession of a Fool_, tr. by S. Swift, London, F. Palmer, 1912; _The
+German Lieutenant and Other Stories_, Chicago, A. C. McClurg & Co.,
+1915; _In Midsummer Days and Other Tales_, tr. by Ellie Schleussner,
+London, H. Latimer, 1913; _Motherlove_, tr. by Francis J. Ziegler,
+Philadelphia, Brown Bros., 2nd ed., 1916, _On the Seaboard_, tr. by
+Elizabeth Clarke Westergren, Cincinnati, Stewart & Kidd Co., 1913;
+_The Son of a Servant_, tr. by. Claud Field, introduction by Henry
+Vacher-Burch, New York, Putnam's, 1913; _The Growth of a Soul_, tr. by
+Claud Field, London, W. Rider & Co., 1913; _The Inferno_, tr. by Claud
+Field, New York, Putnam's, 1913; _Legends, Autobiographical Sketches_,
+London, A. Melrose, 1912; _Zones of the Spirit_, tr. by Claud Field,
+introduction by Arthur Babillotte, London, G. Allen & Co.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+These stories originally appeared in two volumes, the first in 1884,
+the second in 1886. The latter part of the present edition is thus
+separated from the first part by a lapse of two years.
+
+Strindberg's views were continually undergoing changes. Constancy was
+never a trait of his. He himself tells us that opinions are but the
+reflection of a man's experiences, changing as his experiences change.
+In the two years following the publication of the first volume,
+Strindberg's experiences were such as to exercise a decisive influence
+on his views on the woman question and to transmute his early
+predisposition to woman-hating from a passive tendency to a positive,
+active force in his character and writing.
+
+Strindberg's art in _Married_ is of the propagandist, of the fighter
+for a cause. He has a lesson to convey and he makes frankly for his
+goal without attempting to conceal his purpose under the gloss of
+"pure" art. He chooses the story form in preference to the treatise as
+a more powerful medium to drive home his ideas. That the result has
+proved successful is due to the happy admixture in Strindberg of
+thinker and artist. His artist's sense never permitted him to distort
+or misrepresent the truth for the sake of proving his theories. In
+fact, he arrived at his theories not as a scholar through the study of
+books, but as an artist through the experience of life. When life had
+impressed upon him what seemed to him a truth, he then applied his
+intellect to it to bolster up that truth. Hence it is that, however
+opinionated Strindberg may at times seem, his writings carry that
+conviction which we receive only when the author reproduces' truths he
+has obtained first-hand from life. One-sided he may occasionally be in
+_Married_, especially in the later stories, but rarely unfaithful. His
+manner is often to throw such a glaring searchlight upon one spot of
+life that all the rest of it stays in darkness; but the places he does
+show up are never unimportant or trivial. They are well worth seeing
+with Strindberg's brilliant illumination thrown upon them.
+
+August Strindberg has left a remarkably rich record of his life in
+various works, especially in his autobiographical series of novels. He
+was born in 1849 in Stockholm. His was a sad childhood passed in
+extreme poverty. He succeeded in entering the University of Upsala in
+1867, but was forced for a time on account of lack of means to
+interrupt his studies. He tried his fortune as schoolmaster, actor,
+and journalist and made an attempt to study medicine. All the while he
+was active in a literary way, composing his first plays in 1869. In
+1874 he obtained a position in the Royal Library, where he devoted
+himself to scientific studies, learned Chinese in order to catalogue
+the Chinese manuscripts, and wrote an erudite monograph which was read
+at the Academy of Inscriptions in Paris.
+
+His first important literary productions were the drama _Master Olof_
+(1878) and the novel _The Red Room_ (1879). Disheartened by the
+failure of _Master Olof_, he gave up literature for a long time. When
+he returned to it, he displayed an amazing productivity. Work followed
+work in quick succession--novels, short stories, dramas, histories,
+historical studies, and essays. _The Swedish People_ is said to be the
+most popular book in Sweden next to the Bible. The mere enumeration of
+his writings would occupy more than two pages. His versatility led him
+to make researches in physics and chemistry and natural science and to
+write on those subjects.
+
+Through works like _The Red Room_, _Married_, and the dramas _The
+Father_ and _Miss Julia_, Strindberg attached himself to the
+naturalistic school of literature. Another period of literary
+inactivity followed, during which he passed through a mental crisis
+akin to insanity. When he returned to the writing of novels and dramas
+he was no longer a naturalist, but a symbolist and mystic. Among the
+plays he composed in this style are _To Damascus_, _The Dream Play_,
+and _The Great Highway_.
+
+Strindberg married three times, divorced his first two wives, but
+separated amicably from the third. He died in 1913. The vast
+demonstration at his funeral, attended by the laboring classes as well
+as by the "upper" classes, proved that, in spite of the antagonisms he
+had aroused, Sweden unanimously awarded him the highest place in her
+literature.
+
+THOMAS SELTZER.
+
+
+
+
+
+ASRA
+
+
+He had just completed his thirteenth year when his mother died. He
+felt that he had lost a real friend, for during the twelve months of
+her illness he had come to know her personally, as it were, and
+established a relationship between them which is rare between parents
+and children. He was a clever boy and had developed early; he had read
+a great many books besides his schoolbooks, for his father, a
+professor of botany at the Academy of Science, possessed a very good
+library. His mother, on the other hand, was not a well-educated woman;
+she had merely been head housekeeper and children's nurse in her
+husband's house. Numerous births and countless vigils (she had not
+slept through a single night for the last sixteen years), had
+exhausted her strength, and when she became bedridden, at the age of
+thirty-nine, and was no longer able to look after her house, she made
+the acquaintance of her second son; her eldest boy was at a military
+school and only at home during the week ends. Now that her part as
+mother of the family was played to the end and nothing remained of her
+but a poor invalid, the old-fashioned relationship of strict discipline,
+that barrier between parents and children, was superseded.
+The thirteen-year-old son was almost constantly at her bedside,
+reading to her whenever he was not at school or doing home lessons.
+She had many questions to ask and he had a great deal to explain, and
+therefore all those distinguishing marks erected by age and position
+vanished, one after the other: if there was a superior at all, it was
+the son. But the mother, too, had much to teach, for she had learnt
+her lessons in the school of life; and so they were alternately
+teacher and pupil. They discussed all subjects. With the tact of a
+mother and the modesty of the other sex she told her son all he ought
+to know of the mystery of life. He was still innocent, but he had
+heard many things discussed by the boys at school which had shocked
+and disgusted him. The mother explained to him all she could explain;
+warned him of the greatest danger to a young man, and exacted a
+promise from him never to visit a house of ill-fame, not even out of
+curiosity, because, as she pointed out, in such a case no man could
+ever trust himself. And she implored him to live a temperate life, and
+turn to God in prayer whenever temptation assaulted him.
+
+His father was entirely devoted to science, which was a sealed book to
+his wife. When the mother was already on the point of death, he made a
+discovery which he hoped would make his name immortal in the scientific
+world. He discovered, on a rubbish heap, outside the gates of Stockholm,
+a new kind of goose-foot with curved hairs on the usually straight-haired
+calyx. He was in communication with the Berlin Academy of Sciences, and
+the latter was even now considering the advisability of including the new
+variety in the "Flora Germanica"; he was daily expecting to hear whether
+or not the Academy had decided to immortalise his name by calling the
+plant Chenopodium Wennerstroemianium. At his wife's death-bed he was
+absentminded, almost unkind, for he had just received an answer in the
+affirmative, and he fretted because neither he nor his wife could enjoy
+the great news. She thought only of heaven and her children. He could not
+help realising that to talk to her now of a calyx with curved hairs would
+be the height of absurdity; but, he justified himself, it was not so
+much a question of a calyx with straight or curved hairs, as of a
+scientific discovery; and, more than that, it was a question of his
+future and the future of his children, for their father's distinction
+meant bread for them.
+
+When his wife died on the following evening, he cried bitterly; he had
+not shed a tear for many years. He was tortured by remorse, remembered
+even the tiniest wrong he had ever done her, for he had been, on the
+whole, an exemplary husband; his indifference, his absent-mindedness
+of the previous day, filled him with shame and regret, and in a moment
+of blankness he realised all the pettishness and selfishness of his
+science which, he had imagined, was benefiting mankind. But these
+emotions were short-lived; if you open a door with a spring behind it,
+it will close again immediately. On the following morning, after he
+had drawn up an announcement of her death for the papers, he wrote a
+letter of thanks to the Berlin Academy of Sciences. After that he
+resumed his work.
+
+When he came home to dinner, he longed for his wife, so that he might
+tell her of his success, for she had always been his truest friend,
+the only human being who had never been jealous or envious. Now he
+missed this loyal companion on whose approval he could count as a
+matter of course; never once had she contradicted him, for since he
+never told her more than the practical result of his researches, there
+was no room for argument. For a moment the thought occurred to him
+that he might make friends with his son; but they knew each other too
+little; their relationship was that of officer and private soldier.
+His superior rank did not permit him to make advances; moreover, he
+regarded the boy with suspicion, because the latter possessed a keener
+intellect and had read a number of new books which were unknown to
+him; occasionally it even happened that the father, the professor,
+plainly revealed his ignorance to his son, the school-boy. In such
+cases the father was either compelled to dismiss the argument, with a
+few contemptuous remarks to "these new follies," or peremptorily order
+the school-boy to attend to his lessons. Once or twice, in self-defence,
+the son had produced one or other of his school-books; the professor
+had lost his temper and wished the new school-books to hell.
+
+And so it came about that the father devoted himself to his
+collections of dried plants and the son went his own way.
+
+They lived in a quiet street to the left of the Observatory, in a
+small, one-storey house, built of bricks, and surrounded by a large
+garden; the garden was once the property of the Horticultural Society,
+and had come into the professor's possession by inheritance. But since
+he studied descriptive botany, and took no interest in the much more
+interesting subjects of the physiology and morphology of plants, a
+science which was as good as unknown in his youth, he was practically
+a stranger to living nature. He allowed the garden with its many
+splendours to become a wilderness, and finally let it to a gardener on
+condition that he and his children should be allowed certain
+privileges. The son used the garden as a park and enjoyed its beauty
+as he found it, without taking the trouble to try and understand it
+scientifically.
+
+One might compare the boy's character to an ill-proportioned
+compensation pendulum; it contained too much of the soft metal of the
+mother, not enough of the hard metal of the father. Friction and
+irregular oscillations were the natural consequences. Now he was full
+of sentiment, now hard and sceptical. His mother's death affected him
+beyond words. He mourned her deeply, and she always lived in his memory
+as the personification of all that was good and great and beautiful.
+
+He wasted the summer following her death in brooding and novel-reading.
+Grief, and to no small extent idleness, had shaken his whole nervous
+system and quickened his imagination. His tears had been like warm April
+showers falling on fruit trees, wakening them to a precocious burgeoning:
+but alas! only too often the blossoms are doomed to wither and perish in
+a frosty May night, before the fruit has had time to set.
+
+He was fifteen years old and had therefore arrived at the age when
+civilised man attains to manhood and is ripe to give life to a new
+generation, but is prevented from doing so by his inability to
+maintain a family. Consequently he was about to begin the ten years'
+martyrdom which a young man is called upon to endure in the struggle
+against an overwhelming force of nature, before he is in a position to
+fulfil her laws.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is a warm afternoon about Whitsuntide. The appletrees are gorgeous
+in their white splendour which nature has showered all over them with
+a profuse hand. The breeze shakes the crowns and fills the air with
+pollen; a part of it fulfils its destination and creates new life, a
+part sinks to the ground and dies. What is a handful of pollen more or
+less in the inexhaustible store-house of nature! The fertilised blossom
+casts off its delicate petals which flutter to the ground and wither;
+they decay in the rain and are ground to dust, to rise again through the
+sap and re-appear as blossoms, and this time, perhaps, to become fruit.
+But now the struggle begins: those which a kind fate has placed on the
+sunny side, thrive and prosper; the seed bud swells, and if no frost
+intervenes, the fruit, in due time, will set. But those which look
+towards the North, the poor things which grow in the shadow of the
+others and never see the sun, are predestined to fade and fall off;
+the gardener rakes them together and carts them to the pig-sty.
+
+Behold the apple-tree now, its branches laden with half-ripe fruit,
+little, round, golden apples with rosy cheeks. A fresh struggle
+begins: if all remain alive, the branches will not be able to bear
+their weight, the tree will perish. A gale shakes the branches. It
+requires firm stems to hold on. Woe to the weaklings! they are
+condemned to destruction.
+
+A fresh danger! The apple-weevil appears upon the scene. It, too, has
+to maintain life and to fulfil a duty towards its progeny. The grub
+eats its way through the fruit to the stem and the apple falls to the
+ground. But the dainty beetle chooses the strongest and soundest for
+its brood, otherwise too many of the strong ones would be allowed to
+live, and competition would become over-keen.
+
+The hour of twilight, the gathering dusk, arouses the passionate
+instincts of the beast-world. The night-crow crouches on the newly-dug
+flower-bed to lure its mate. Which of the eager males shall carry the
+prize? Let them decide the question!
+
+The cat, sleek and warm, fresh from her evening milk, steals away from
+her corner by the hearth and picks her way carefully among daffodils
+and lilies, afraid lest the dew make her coat damp and ragged before
+her lover joins her. She sniffs at the young lavender and calls. Her
+call is answered by the black tom-cat which appears, broad-backed like
+a marten, on the neighbour's fence; but the gardener's tortoise-shell
+approaches from the cow-shed and the fight begins. Handfuls of the
+rich, black soil are flying about in all directions, and the
+newly-planted radishes and spinach plants are roughly awakened from
+their quiet sleep and dreams of the future. The stronger of the two
+remains in possession of the field, and the female awaits complacently
+the frenetic embraces of the victor. The vanquished flies to engage in
+a new struggle in which, perhaps, victory will smile on him.
+
+Nature smiles, content, for she knows of no other sin than the sin
+against her law; she is on the side of the strong for her desire is
+for strong children, even though she should have to kill the "eternal
+ego" of the insignificant individual. And there is no prudery, no
+hesitation, no fear of consequences, for nature has plenty of food for
+all her children--except mankind.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After supper he went for a walk in the garden while his father sat
+down at his bed-room window to smoke a pipe and read the evening
+paper. He strolled along the paths, revelling in the delicious odours
+which a plant only exhales when it is in full bloom, and which is the
+finest and strongest extract of etheric oils, containing in a
+condensed form the full strength of the individual, destined to become
+the representative of the species. He listened to the nuptial song of
+the insects above the lime trees, which rings in our ears like a
+funeral dirge: he heard the purring call of the night-crow; the ardent
+mewing of the cat, which sounds as if death, and not life, were
+wooing; the humming note of the dung-beetle, the fluttering of the
+large moths, the thin peeping of the bats.
+
+He stopped before a bed of narcissus, gathered one of the while,
+starry flowers, and inhaled its perfume until he felt the blood
+hammering in his temples. He had never examined this flower minutely.
+But during the last term they had read Ovid's story of Narcissus. He
+had not discovered a deeper meaning in the legend. What did it mean,
+this story of a youth who, from unrequited love, turned his ardour
+upon himself and was consumed by the flame when he fell in love with
+his own likeness seen in a well? As he stood, examining the white,
+cup-shaped petals, pale as the cheeks of an invalid with fine red
+lines such as one may see in the faces of consumptives when a pitiless
+cough forces the blood into the extremest and tiniest blood-vessels,
+he thought of a school-fellow, a young aristocrat, who was a
+midshipman now; he looked like that.
+
+When he had inhaled the scent of the flower for some time, the strong
+odour of cloves disappeared and left but a disagreeable, soapy smell
+which made him feel sick.
+
+He sauntered on to where the path turned to the right and finally lost
+itself in an avenue planted on both sides with elm-trees whose branches
+had grown together and formed an arch overhead. In the semi-darkness,
+far down the perspective, he could see a large green swing, suspended
+by ropes, slowly moving backwards and forwards. A girl stood on the
+back board, gently swinging herself by bending her knees and throwing
+her body forward, while she clung, with arms raised high above her head,
+to the ropes at her side. He recognised the gardener's daughter, a girl
+who had been confirmed last Easter and had just begun to wear long
+skirts. To-night, however, she was dressed in one of her old dresses
+which barely reached to her ankles.
+
+The sight of the young man embarrassed her, for she remembered the
+shortness of her skirt, but she nevertheless remained on the swing. He
+advanced and looked at her.
+
+"Go away, Mr. Theodore," said the girl, giving the swing a vigorous
+push.
+
+"Why should I?" answered the youth, who felt the draught of her
+fluttering skirts on his throbbing temples.
+
+"Because I want you to," said the girl.
+
+"Let me come up, too, and I'll swing you, Gussie," pleaded Theodore,
+springing on to the board.
+
+Now he was standing on the swing, facing her. And when they rose into
+the air, he felt her skirts flapping against his legs, and when they
+descended, he bent over her and looked into her eyes which were
+brilliant with fear and enjoyment. Her thin cotton blouse fitted
+tightly and showed every line of her young figure; her smiling lips
+were half-open, displaying two rows of sound white teeth, which looked
+as if they would like to bite or kiss him.
+
+Higher and higher rose the swing, until it struck the topmost branches
+of the maple. The girl screamed and fell forward, into his arms; he
+was pushed over, on to the seat. The trembling of the soft warm body
+which nestled closely in his arms, sent an electric shock through his
+whole nervous system; a black veil descended before his eyes and he
+would have let her go if her left shoulder had not been tightly
+pressed against his right arm.
+
+The speed of the swing slackened. She rose and sat on the seat facing
+him. And thus they remained with downcast eyes, not daring to look one
+another in the face.
+
+When the swing stopped, the girl slipped off the seat and ran away as
+if she were answering a call. Theodore was left alone. He felt the
+blood surging in his veins. It seemed to him that his strength was
+redoubled. But he could not grasp what had happened. He vaguely
+conceived himself as an electrophor whose positive electricity, in
+discharging, had combined with the negative. It had happened during a
+quite ordinary, to all appearances chaste, contact with a young woman.
+He had never felt the same emotion in wrestling, for instance, with
+his school-fellows in the play-ground. He had come into contact with
+the opposite polarity of the female sex and now he knew what it meant
+to be a man. For he was a man, not a precocious boy, kicking over the
+traces; he was a strong, hardy, healthy youth.
+
+As he strolled along, up and down the garden paths, new thoughts
+formed in his brain. Life looked at him with graver eyes, he felt
+conscious of a sense of duty. But he was only fifteen years old. He
+was not yet confirmed and many years would have to elapse before he
+would be considered an independent member of the community, before he
+would be able to earn a living for himself, let alone maintain a wife
+and family. He took life seriously, the thought of light adventures
+never occurred to him. Women were to him something sacred, his
+opposite pole, the supplement and completion of himself. He was mature
+now, bodily and mentally, fit to enter the arena of life and fight his
+way. What prevented him from doing so? His education, which had taught
+him nothing useful; his social position, which stood between him and a
+trade he might have learned. The Church, which had not yet received
+his vow of loyalty to her priests; the State, which was still waiting
+for his oath of allegiance to Bernadotte and Nassau; the School, which
+had not yet trained him sufficiently to consider him ripe for the
+University; the secret alliance of the upper against the lower
+classes. A whole mountain of follies lay on him and his young
+strength. Now that he knew himself to be a man, the whole system of
+education seemed to him an institution for the mutilation of body and
+soul. They must both be mutilated before he could be allowed to enter
+the harem of the world, where manhood is considered a danger; he could
+find no other excuse for it. And thus he sank back into his former
+state of immaturity. He compared himself to a celery plant, tied up
+and put under a flower-pot so as to make it as white and soft as
+possible, unable to put forth green leaves in the sunshine, flower,
+and bear seed.
+
+Wrapped in these thoughts he remained in the garden until the clock on
+the nearest church tower struck ten. Then he turned towards the house,
+for it was bed-time. But the front door was locked. The house-maid, a
+petticoat thrown over her nightgown, let him in. A glimpse of her bare
+shoulders roused him from his sentimental reveries; he tried to put
+his arm round her and kiss her, for at the moment he was conscious of
+nothing but her sex. But the maid had already disappeared, shutting
+the door with a bang. Overwhelmed with shame he opened his window,
+cooled his head in a basin of cold water and lighted his lamp.
+
+When he had got into bed, he took up a volume of Arndt's _Spiritual
+Voices of the Morning_, a book which had belonged to his mother; he
+read a chapter of it every evening to be on the safe side, for in the
+morning his time was short. The book reminded him of the promise of
+chastity given to his mother on her death-bed, and he felt a twinge of
+conscience. A fly which had singed its wings on his lamp, and was now
+buzzing round the little table by his bedside, turned his thoughts
+into another channel; he closed the book and lit a cigarette. He heard
+his father take off his boots in the room below, knock out his pipe
+against the stove, pour out a glass of water and get ready to go to
+bed. He thought how lonely he must be since he had become a widower.
+In days gone by he had often heard the subdued voices of his parents
+through the thin partition, in intimate conversation on matters on
+which they always agreed; but now no voice was audible, nothing but
+the dead sounds which a man makes in waiting upon himself, sounds
+which one must put side by side, like the figures in a rebus, before
+one can understand their meaning.
+
+He finished his cigarette, blew out the lamp and said the Lord's Prayer
+in an undertone, but he got no farther than the fifth petition. Then he
+fell asleep.
+
+He awoke from a dream in the middle of the night. He had dreamt that
+he held the gardener's daughter in his arms. He could not remember the
+circumstances, for he was quite dazed, and fell asleep again directly.
+
+On the following morning he was depressed and had a headache. He
+brooded over the future which loomed before him threateningly and
+filled him with dread. He realised with a pang how quickly the summer
+was passing, for the end of the summer meant the degradation of
+school-life. Every thought of his own would be stifled by the thoughts
+of others; there was no advantage in being able to think independently;
+it required a fixed number of years before one could reach one's goal.
+It was like a journey on a good's train; the engine was bound to remain
+for a certain time in the stations, and when the pressure of the steam
+became too strong, from want of consumption of energy, a waste-pipe had
+to be opened. The Board had drawn up the time-table and the train was
+not permitted to arrive at the stations before its appointed time. That
+was the principal thing which mattered.
+
+The father noticed the boy's pallor, but he put it down to grief over
+his mother's death.
+
+Autumn came and with it the return to school. Theodore, by dint of
+much novel-reading during the summer, and coming in this way, as it
+were, in constant contact with grown-up people and their problems and
+struggles, had come to look upon himself as a grown-up member of
+society. Now the masters treated him with familiarity, the boys took
+liberties which compelled him to repay them in kind. And this
+educational institution, which was to ennoble him and make him fit to
+take his place in the community, what did it teach him? How did it
+ennoble him? The compendiums, one and all, were written under the
+control of the upper classes, for the sole purpose of forcing the
+lower classes to look up to their betters. The schoolmasters
+frequently reproached their pupils with ingratitude and impressed on
+them their utter inability to realise, even faintly, the advantage
+they enjoyed in receiving an education which so many of their poorer
+fellow-creatures would always lack. No, indeed, the boys were not
+sophisticated enough to see through the gigantic fraud and its
+advantages.
+
+But did they ever find true joy, real pleasure in the subjects of
+their studies for their own sakes? Never! Therefore the teachers had
+to appeal incessantly to the lower passions of their pupils, to
+ambition, self-interest, material advantages.
+
+What a miserable make-believe school was! Not one of the boys believed
+that he would reap any benefit from repeating the names and dates of
+hated kings in their proper sequence, from learning dead languages,
+proving axioms, defining "a matter of course," and counting the anthers
+of plants and the joints on the hindlegs of insects, to knowing the end
+no more about them than their Latin names. How many long hours were
+wasted in the vain attempt to divide an angle into three equal sections,
+a thing which can be done so easily in a minute in an _unscientific_
+(that is to say practical) way by using a graduator.
+
+How they scorned everything practical! His sisters, who were taught
+French from Ollendorf's grammar, were able to speak the language after
+two years' study; but the college boys could not say a single sentence
+after six. Ollendorf was a name which they pronounced with pity and
+contempt. It was the essence of all that was stupid.
+
+But when his sister asked for an explanation and enquired whether the
+purpose of spoken language was not the expression of human thought,
+the young sophist replied with a phrase picked up from one of the
+masters who in his turn had borrowed it from Talleyrand. Language was
+invented to hide one's thoughts. This, of course, was beyond the
+horizon of a young girl (how well men know how to hide their
+shortcomings), but henceforth she believed her brother to be
+tremendously learned, and stopped arguing with him.
+
+And was there not even a worse stumbling-block in aesthetics, delusive
+and deceptive, casting a veil of borrowed splendour and sham beauty
+over everything? They sang of "The Knights' Vigil of Light." What
+knights' vigil? With patents of nobility and students' certificates;
+false testimonials, as they might have told themselves. Of light? That
+was to say of the upper classes who had the greatest interest in
+keeping the lower classes in darkness, a task in which they were ably
+assisted by church and school. "And onward, onward, on the path of
+light!"
+
+Things were always called by the wrong name. And if it so happened
+that a light-bearer arose from the lower classes, everybody was ready
+and prepared to extinguish his torch. Oh! youthful, healthy host of
+fighters! How healthy they were, all these young men, enervated by
+idleness, unsatisfied desires and ambitions, who scorned every man who
+had not the means to pay for a University education! What splendid
+liars they were, the poets of the upper classes! Were they the
+deceivers or the deceived?
+
+What was the usual subject of the young men's conversation? Their
+studies? Never! Once in a way, perhaps, they would talk of certificates.
+No, their conversation was of things obscene; of appointments with
+women; of billiards and drink; of certain diseases which they had heard
+discussed by their elder brothers. They lounged about in the afternoon
+and "held the reviews," and the best informed of them knew the name of
+the officer and could tell the others where his mistress lived.
+
+Once two members of the "Knights' Vigil of Light," had dined in the
+company of two women on the terrace of a high-class restaurant in the
+Zoological Gardens. For this offence they were expelled from school.
+They were punished for their naivete, not because their conduct was
+considered vicious, for a year after they passed their examinations
+and went to the University, gaining in this way a whole year; and when
+they had completed their studies at Upsala, they were attached to the
+Embassy in one of the capitals of Europe, to represent the United
+Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway.
+
+In these surroundings Theodore spent the best part of his youth. He
+had seen through the fraud, but was compelled to acquiesce! Again and
+again he asked himself the question: What can I do? There was no answer.
+And so he became an accessory and learned to hold his tongue.
+
+His confirmation appeared to him to be very much on a level with his
+school experience. A young minister, an ardent pietist, was to teach
+him in four months Luther's Catechism, regardless of the fact that he was
+well versed in theology, exegesis and dogmatics, besides having read the
+New Testament in Greek. Nevertheless the strict pietism, which demanded
+absolute truth in thought and action, could not fail to make a great
+impression on him.
+
+When the catechumens were assembled for the first time, Theodore found
+himself quite unexpectedly surrounded by a totally different class of
+boys to whom he had been used at school. When he entered the
+assembly-room he was met by the stare of something like a hundred
+inimical eyes. There were tobacco binders, chimney sweeps, apprentices
+of all trades. They were on bad terms and freely abused one another,
+but this enmity between the different trades was only superficial;
+however much they quarrelled, they yet held together. He seemed to
+breathe a strangely stifling atmosphere; the hatred with which they
+greeted him was not unmixed with contempt, the reverse of a certain
+respect or envy. He looked in vain for a friend, for a companion,
+like-minded, dressed as he was. There was not a single one. The parish
+was poor, the rich people sent their children to the German church which
+was then the fashion. It was in the company of the children of the
+people, the lower classes, that he was to approach the altar, as their
+equal. He asked himself what it was that separated him from these boys?
+Were they not, bodily, endowed with the same gifts as he? No doubt, for
+every one of them earned his living, and some of them helped to keep
+their parents. Were they less gifted, mentally? He did not think so, for
+their remarks gave evidence of keen powers of observation; he would have
+laughed at many of their witty remarks if he had not been conscious of
+his superior caste. There was no definite line of demarcation between
+him and the fools who were his school-fellows. But there was a line here
+Was it the shabby clothes, the plain faces, the coarse hands, which
+formed the barrier? Partly, he thought. Their plainness, especially,
+repulsed him. But were they worse than others because they were plain?
+
+He was carrying a foil, as he had a fencing lesson later on. He put it
+in a corner of the room, hoping that it would escape attention. But it
+had been seen already. Nobody knew what kind of a thing it really was,
+but everybody recognised it as a weapon of some sort. Some of the
+boldest busied themselves about the corner, so as to have a look at
+it. They fingered the covering of the handle, scratched the guard with
+their nails, bent the blade, handled the small leather ball. They were
+like hares sniffing at a gun which had been lost in the wood. They did
+not understand its use, but they knew it for something inimical,
+something with a hidden meaning. Presently a belt-maker's apprentice,
+whose brother was in the Life Guards, joined the inquisitive throng
+and at once decided the question: "Can't you see that it is a sword,
+you fools?" he shouted, with a look at Theodore. It was a respectful
+look, but a look which also hinted at a secret understanding between
+them, which, correctly interpreted, meant: You and I understand these
+things! But a young rope-maker, who had once been a trumpeter in a
+military band, considered this giving of a verdict without consulting
+him a personal slight and declared that he "would be hanged if it
+wasn't a rapier!" The consequence was a fight which transformed the
+place into a bear-garden, dense with dust and re-echoing with screams
+and yells.
+
+The door opened and the minister stood on the threshold. He was a pale
+young man, very thin, with watery blue eyes and a face disfigured by a
+rash. He shouted at the boys. The wild beasts ceased fighting. He
+began talking of the precious blood of Christ and the power of the
+Evil One over the human heart. After a little while he succeeded in
+inducing the hundred boys to sit down on the forms and chairs. But now
+he was quite out of breath and the atmosphere was thick with dust. He
+glanced at the window and said in a faint voice: "Open the sash!" This
+request re-awakened the only half-subdued passions. Twenty-five boys
+made a rush for the window and tried to seize the window cord.
+
+"Go to your places at once!" screamed the minister, stretching out his
+hand for his cane.
+
+There was a momentary silence during which the minister tried to think
+of a way of having the sash raised without a fight.
+
+"You," he said at last to a timid little fellow, "go and open the
+window!"
+
+The small boy went to the window and tried to disentangle the window
+cord. The others looked on in breathless silence, when suddenly a big
+lad, in sailor's clothes, who had just come home on the brig _Carl
+Johan_, lost patience.
+
+"The devil take me if I don't show you what a lad can do," he shouted,
+throwing off his coat and jumping on the window sill; there was a
+flash from his cutlass and the rope was cut.
+
+"Cable's cut!" he laughed, as the minister with a hysterical cry,
+literally drove him to his seat.
+
+"The rope was so entangled that there was nothing for it but to cut
+it," he assured him, as he sat down.
+
+The minister was furious. He had come from a small town in the
+provinces and had never conceived the possibility of so much sin, so
+much wickedness and immorality. He had never come into contact with
+lads so far advanced on the road to damnation. And he talked at great
+length of the precious blood of Christ.
+
+Not one of them understood what he said, for they did not realise that
+they had fallen, since they had never bee different. The boys received
+his words with coldness and indifference.
+
+The minister rambled on and spoke of Christ's precious wounds, but not
+one of them took his words to heart, for not one of them was conscious
+of having wounded Christ. He changed the subject and spoke of the
+devil, but that was a topic so familiar to them that it made no
+impression. At last he hit on the right thing. He began to talk of
+their confirmation which was to take place in the coming spring. He
+reminded them of their parents, anxious that their children should
+play a part in the life of the community; when he went on to speak of
+employers who refused to employ lads who had not been confirmed, his
+listeners became deeply interested at once, and every one of them
+understood the great importance of the coming ceremony. Now he was
+sincere, and the young minds grasped what he was talking about; the
+noisiest among them became quiet.
+
+The registration began. What a number of marriage certificates were
+missing! How could the children come to Christ when their parents had
+not been legally married? How could they approach the altar when their
+fathers had been in prison? Oh! what sinners they were!
+
+Theodore was deeply moved by the exhibition of so much shame and
+disgrace. He longed to tear his thoughts away from the subject, but
+was unable to do so. Now it was his turn to hand in his certificates
+and the minister read out: son: Theodore, born on such and such a
+date; parents: professor and knight ... a faint smile flickered like a
+feeble sunbeam over his face, he gave him a friendly nod and asked:
+"And how is your dear father?" But when he saw that the mother was
+dead (a fact of which he was perfectly well aware) his face clouded
+over. "She was a child of God," he said, as if he were talking to
+himself, in a gushing, sympathetic, whining voice, but the remark
+conveyed at the same time a certain reproach against the "dear father,"
+who was only a professor and knight. After that Theodore could go.
+
+When he left the assembly-room he felt that he had gone through an
+almost impossible experience. Were all those lads really depraved
+because they used oaths and coarse language, as his companions, his
+father, his uncle, and all the upper classes did at times? What did
+the minister mean when he talked of immorality? They were more savage
+than the spoilt children of the wealthy, but that was because they
+were more fully alive. It was unfair to blame them for missing
+marriage certificates. True, his father had never committed a theft,
+but there was no necessity for a man to steal if he had an income of
+six thousand crowns and could please himself. The act would be absurd
+or abnormal in such a case.
+
+Theodore went back to school realising what it meant "to have received
+an education"; here nobody was badgered for small faults. As little
+notice as possible was taken of one's own or one's parent's weaknesses,
+one was among equals and understood one another.
+
+After school one "held the reviews," sneaked into a cafe and drank a
+liqueur, and finally went to the fencing-room. He looked at the young
+officers who treated him as their equal, observed all those young
+bloods with their supple limbs, pleasant manners and smiling faces,
+every one of them certain that a good dinner was awaiting him at home,
+and became conscious of the existence of two worlds: an upper and an
+under-world. He remembered the gloomy assembly-room and the wretched
+assembly he had just left with a pang; all their wounds and hidden
+defects were mercilessly exposed and examined through a
+magnifying-glass, so that the lower classes might acquire that true
+humility failing which the upper classes cannot enjoy their amiable
+weaknesses in peace. And for the first time something jarring had come
+into this life.
+
+However much Theodore was tossed about between his natural yearning
+for the only half-realised temptations of the world, and his newly
+formed desire to turn his back on this world and his mind heavenwards,
+he did not break the promise given to his mother. The religious
+teaching which he and the other catechumens received from the minister
+in the church, did not fail to impress him deeply. He was often gloomy
+and wrapped in thought and felt that life was not what it ought to be.
+He had a dim notion that once upon a time a terrible crime had been
+committed, which it was now everybody's business to hide by practising
+countless deceptions; he compared himself to a fly caught in a spider's
+web: the more it struggled to regain its freedom, the more it entangled
+itself, until at last it died miserably, strangled by the cruel threads.
+
+One evening--the minister scorned no trick likely to produce an effect
+on his hard-headed pupils--they were having a lesson in the choir. It
+was in January. Two gas jets lighted up the choir, illuminating and
+distorting the marble figures on the altar. The whole of the large
+church with its two barrel-vaults, which crossed one another, lay in
+semi-darkness. In the background the shining organ pipes faintly
+reflected the gas flames; above it the angels blowing their trumpets
+to summon the sleepers before the judgment seat of their maker, looked
+merely like sinister, threatening human figures above life size; the
+cloisters were lost in complete darkness.
+
+The minister had explained the seventh commandment. He had spoken of
+immorality between married and unmarried people. He could not explain
+to his pupils what immorality between husband and wife meant, although
+he was a married man himself; but on the subject of immorality in all
+its other aspects he was well-informed. He went on to the subject of
+self-abuse. As he pronounced the word a rustling sound passed through
+the rows of young men; they stared at him, with white cheeks and
+hollow eyes, as if a phantom had appeared in their midst. As long as
+he kept to the tortures of hell fire, they remained fairly indifferent,
+but when he took up a book and read to them accounts of youths who had
+died at the age of twenty-five of consumption of the spine, they
+collapsed in their seats, and felt as if the floor were giving way
+beneath them! He told them the story of a young boy who was committed
+to an asylum at the age of twelve, and died at the age of fourteen,
+having found peace in the faith of his Redeemer. They saw before their
+shrinking eyes a hundred corpses, washed and shrouded. "There is but one
+remedy against this evil," went on the minister, "the precious wounds of
+Christ." But how this remedy was to be used against sexual precocity, he
+did not tell them. He admonished them not to go to dances, to shun
+theatres and gaming-houses, and above all things, to avoid women; that
+is to say to act in exact contradiction to their inclinations. That this
+vice contradicts and utterly confounds he pronouncement of the community
+that a man is not mature until he is twenty-one, was passed over in
+silence. Whether it could be prevented by early marriages (supposing a
+means of providing food for all instead of banquets for a few could be
+found) remained an open question. The final issue was that one should
+throw oneself into the arms of Christ, that is to say, go to church, and
+leave the care of temporal things to the upper classes.
+
+After this admonishment the minister requested the first five on the
+first form to stay behind. He wished to speak to them in private. The
+first five looked as if they had been sentenced to death. Their chests
+contracted; they breathed with difficulty, and a careful observer might
+have noticed that their hair had risen an inch at the roots and lay over
+their skulls in damp strands like the hair of a corpse. Their eyes stared
+from their blanched sockets like two round glass bullets set in leather,
+motionless, not knowing whether to face the question with a bold front,
+or hide behind an impudent lie.
+
+After the prayer the hymn of Christ's wounds was sung; to-night it
+sounded like the singing of consumptives; every now and then it died
+away altogether, or was interrupted by a dry cough, like the cough of
+a man who is dying of thirst. Then they began to file out. One of the
+five attempted to steal away, but the minister called him back.
+
+It was a terrible moment. Theodore who sat on the first form was one
+of the five. He felt sick at heart. Not because he was guilty of the
+offence indicated, but because in his heart he considered it an insult
+to a man thus to have to lay bare the most secret places of his soul.
+
+The other four sat down, as far from each other as they could. The
+belt-maker's apprentice, who was one of them, tried to make a joke,
+but the words refused to come. They saw themselves confronted by the
+police-court, the prison, the hospital and, in the background, the
+asylum. They did not know what was going to happen, but they felt
+instinctively that a species of scourging awaited them. Their only
+comfort in their distressing situation was the fact that _he_, Mr.
+Theodore, was one of them. It was not clear to them why that fact
+should be a comfort, but they knew intuitively that no evil would
+happen to the son of a professor.
+
+"Come along, Wennerstroem," said the minister, after he had lighted
+the gas in the vestry.
+
+Wennerstroem went and the door closed behind him. The four remained
+seated on their forms, vainly trying to discover a comfortable
+position for their limbs.
+
+After a while Wennerstroem returned, with red eyes, trembling with
+excitement; he immediately went down the corridor and out into the
+night.
+
+When he stood in the churchyard which lay silent under a heavy cover
+of snow, he recapitulated all that had happened in the vestry. The
+minister had asked him whether he had sinned? No, he had not. Did he
+have dreams? Yes! He was told that dreams were equally sinful, because
+they proved that the heart was wicked, and God looked at the heart.
+"He trieth the heart and reins, and on the last day he will judge
+every one of us for every sinful thought, and dreams are thoughts.
+Christ has said: Give me your heart, my son! Go to Him! Pray, pray,
+pray! Whatsoever is chaste, whatsoever is pure, whatsoever is
+lovely--that is He. The alpha and the omega, life and happiness.
+Chasten the flesh and be strong in prayer. Go in the name of the Lord
+and sin no more!"
+
+He felt indignant, but he was also crushed. In vain did he struggle to
+throw off his depression, he had not been taught sufficient common-sense
+at school to use it as a weapon against this Jesuitical sophistry. It
+was true, his knowledge of psychology enabled him to modify the statement
+that dreams are thoughts; dreams are fancies, he mused, creations of the
+imagination; but God has no regard for words! Logic taught him that there
+was something unnatural in his premature desires. He could not marry at
+the age of sixteen, since he was unable to support a wife; but why he was
+unable to support a wife, although he felt himself to be a man, was a
+problem which he could not solve. However anxious he might be to get
+married, the laws of society which are made by the upper classes and
+protected by bayonets, would prevent him. Consequently nature must have
+been sinned against in some way, for a man was mature long before he was
+able to earn a living. It must be degeneracy. His imagination must be
+degenerate; it was for him to purify it by prayer and sacrifice.
+
+When he arrived home, he found his father and sisters at supper. He
+was ashamed to sit down with them, for he felt degraded. His father
+asked him, as usual, whether the date of the confirmation had been
+fixed. Theodore did not know. He touched no food, pretending that he
+was not well; the truth was that he did not dare to eat any supper. He
+went into his bedroom and read an essay by Schartau which the minister
+had lent him. The subject was the vanity of reason. And here, just
+here, where all his hopes of arriving at a clear understanding were
+centred, the light failed. Reason which he had dared to hope would
+some day guide him out of the darkness into the light, reason, too,
+was sin; the greatest of all sins, for it questioned God's very
+existence, tried to understand what was not meant to be understood.
+Why _it_ was not meant to be understood, was not explained; probably
+it was because if _it_ had been understood the fraud would have been
+discovered.
+
+He rebelled no longer, but surrendered himself. Before going to bed he
+read two _Morning Voices_ from Arndt, recited the Creed, the Lord's
+Prayer and the Blessing. He felt very hungry; a fact which he realised
+with a certain spiteful pleasure, for it seemed to him that his enemy
+was suffering.
+
+With these thoughts he fell asleep. He awoke in the middle of the
+night. He had dreamt of a champagne supper in the company of a girl.
+And the whole terrible evening arose fresh in his memory.
+
+He leapt out of bed with a bound, threw his sheets and blankets on the
+floor and lay down to sleep on the bare mattress, covering himself
+with nothing but a thin coverlet. He was cold and hungry, but he must
+subdue the devil. Again he repeated the Lord's Prayer, with additions
+of his own. By and by his thoughts grew confused, the strained
+expression of his features relaxed, a smile softened the expression of
+his mouth; lovely figures appeared before him, serene and smiling, he
+heard subdued voices, half-stifled laughter, a few bars from a waltz,
+saw sparkling glasses and frank and merry faces with candid eyes,
+which met his own unabashed; suddenly a curtain was parted in the
+middle; a charming little face peeped through the red silk draperies,
+with smiling lips and dancing eyes; the slender throat is bare, the
+beautiful sloping shoulders look as if they had been modelled by a
+caressing hand; she holds out her arms and he draws her to his
+thumping heart.
+
+The clock was striking three. Again he had been worsted in the fight.
+
+Determined to win, he picked up the mattress and threw it out of the
+bed. Then he knelt on the cold floor and fervently prayed to God for
+strength, for he felt that he was indeed wrestling with the devil.
+When he had finished his prayer he lay down on the bare frame, and
+with a feeling of satisfaction felt the ropes and belting cutting into
+his arms and shins.
+
+He awoke in the morning in a high fever.
+
+He was laid up for six weeks. When he arose from his bed of sickness,
+he felt better than he had ever felt before. The rest, the good food
+and the medicine had increased his strength, and the struggle was now
+twice as hard. But he continued to struggle.
+
+His confirmation took place in the spring. The moving scene in which
+the lower classes promise on oath never to interfere with these things
+which the upper classes consider their privilege, made a lasting
+impression on him. It didn't trouble him that the minister offered him
+wine bought from the wine-merchant Hoegstedt at sixty-five oere the
+pint, and wafers from Lettstroem, the baker, at one crown a pound, as
+the flesh and blood of the great agitator Jesus of Nazareth, who was
+done to death nineteen hundred years ago. He didn't think about it,
+for one didn't think in those days, one had emotions.
+
+A year after his confirmation he passed his final examination. The
+smart little college cap was a source of great pleasure to him;
+without being actually conscious of it, he felt that he, as a member
+of the upper classes, had received a charter. They were not a little
+proud of their knowledge, too, these young men, for the masters had
+pronounced them "mature." The conceited youths! If at least they had
+mastered all the nonsense of which they boasted! If anybody had
+listened to their conversation at the banquet given in their honour,
+it would have been a revelation to him. They declared openly that they
+had not acquired five per cent. of the knowledge which ought to have
+been in their possession; they assured everybody who had ears to
+listen that it was a miracle that they had passed; the uninitiated
+would not have believed a word of it. And some of the young masters,
+now that the barrier between pupil and teacher was removed, and
+simulation was no longer necessary, swore solemnly, with half-intoxicated
+gestures, that there was not a single master in the whole school who
+would not have been plucked. A sober person could not help drawing the
+conclusion that the examination was like a line which could be drawn at
+will between upper and lower classes; and then he saw in the miracle
+nothing but a gigantic fraud.
+
+It was one of the masters who, sipping a glass of punch, maintained
+that only an idiot could imagine that a human brain could remember at
+the same time: the three thousand dates mentioned in history; the
+names of the five thousand towns situated in all parts of the world;
+the names of six hundred plants and seven hundred animals; the bones
+in the human body, the stones which form the crust of the earth, all
+theological disputes, one thousand French words, one thousand English,
+one thousand German, one thousand Latin, one thousand Greek, half a
+million rules and exceptions to the rules: five hundred mathematical,
+physical, geometrical, chemical formulas. He was willing to prove that
+in order to be capable of such a feat the brain would have to be as
+large as the cupola of the Observatory at Upsala. Humboldt, he went on
+to say, finally forgot his tables, and the professor of astronomy at
+Lund had been unable to divide two whole numbers of six figures each.
+The newly-fledged under-graduates imagined that they knew six
+languages, and yet they knew no more than five thousand words at most
+of the twenty thousand which composed their mother tongue. And hadn't
+he seen how they cheated? Oh! he knew all their tricks! He had seen
+the dates written on their finger nails; he had watched them
+consulting books under cover of their desks, he had heard them
+whispering to one another! But, he concluded, what is one to do?
+Unless one closes an eye to these things, the supply of students is
+bound to come to an end. During the summer Theodore remained at home,
+spending much of his time in the garden. He brooded over the problem
+of his future; what profession was he to choose? He had gained so much
+insight into the methods of the huge Jesuitical community which, under
+the name of the upper classes, constituted society, that he felt
+dissatisfied with the world and decided to enter the Church to save
+himself from despair. And yet the world beckoned to him. It lay before
+him, fair and bright, and his young, fermenting blood yearned for
+life. He spent himself in the struggle and his idleness added to his
+torments.
+
+Theodore's increasing melancholy and waning health began to alarm his
+father. He had no doubt about the cause, but he could not bring
+himself to talk to his son on such a delicate subject.
+
+One Sunday afternoon the Professor's brother who was an officer in the
+Pioneers, called. They were sitting in the garden, sipping their coffee.
+
+"Have you noticed the change in Theodore?" asked the Professor.
+
+"Yes, his time has come," answered the Captain.
+
+"I believe it has come long ago."
+
+"I wish you'd talk to him, I can't do it."
+
+"If I were a bachelor, I should play the part of the uncle," said the
+Captain; "as it is, I'll ask Gustav to do it. The boy must see something
+of life, or he'll go wrong. Hot stuff these Wennerstroems, what?"
+
+"Yes," said the Professor, "I was a man at fifteen, but I had a
+school-friend who was never confirmed because he was a father at
+thirteen."
+
+"Look at Gustav! Isn't he a fine fellow? I'm hanged if he isn't as
+broad across the back as an old captain! He's a handful!"
+
+"Yes," answered the Professor, "he costs me a lot, but after all, I'd
+rather pay than see the boy running any risks. I wish you'd ask Gustav
+to take Theodore about with him a little, just to rouse him."
+
+"Oh! with pleasure!" answered the Captain.
+
+And so the matter was settled.
+
+One evening in July, when the summer is in its prime and all the
+blossoms which the spring has fertilised ripen into fruit, Theodore
+was sitting in his bed-room, waiting. He had pinned a text against his
+wall. "Come to Jesus," it said, and it was intended as a hint to the
+lieutenant not to argue with him when he occasionally came home from
+barracks for a few minutes. Gustav was of a lively disposition, "a
+handful," as his uncle had said. He wasted no time in brooding. He had
+promised to call for Theodore at seven o'clock; they were going to
+make arrangements for the celebration of the professor's birthday.
+Theodore's secret plan was to convert his brother, and Gustav's
+equally secret intention was to make his younger brother take a more
+reasonable view of life.
+
+Punctually at seven o'clock, a cab stopped before the house, (the
+lieutenant invariably arrived in a cab) and immediately after Theodore
+heard the ringing of his spurs and the rattling of his sword on the
+stairs.
+
+"Good evening, you old mole," said the elder brother with a laugh. He
+was the picture of health and youth. His highly-polished Hessian boots
+revealed a pair of fine legs, his tunic outlined the loins of a
+cart-horse; the golden bandolier of his cartridge box made his chest
+appear broader and his sword-belt showed off a pair of enormous thighs.
+
+He glanced at the text and grinned, but said nothing.
+
+"Come along, old man, let's be off to Bellevue! We'll call on the
+gardener there and make arrangements for the old man's birthday. Put
+on your hat, and come, old chap!"
+
+Theodore tried to think of an excuse, but the brother took him by the
+arm, put a hat on his head, back to front, pushed a cigarette between
+his lips and opened the door. Theodore felt like a fish out of water,
+but he went with his brother.
+
+"To Bellevue!" said the lieutenant to the cab-driver, "and mind you
+make your thoroughbreds fly!"
+
+Theodore could not help being amused. It would never have occurred to
+him to address an elderly married man, like the cabman, with so much
+familiarity.
+
+On the way the lieutenant talked of everything under the sun and stared
+at every pretty girl they passed.
+
+They met a funeral procession on its return from the cemetery.
+
+"Did you notice that devilish pretty girl in the last coach?" asked
+Gustav.
+
+Theodore had not seen her and did not want to see her.
+
+They passed an omnibus full of girls of the barmaid type. The
+lieutenant stood up, unconcernedly, in the public thoroughfare, and
+kissed his hands to them. He really behaved like a madman.
+
+The business at Bellevue was soon settled. On their return the
+cab-driver drove them, without waiting for an order, to "The Equerry,"
+a restaurant where Gustav was evidently well-known.
+
+"Let's go and have something to eat," said the lieutenant, pushing his
+brother out of the cab.
+
+Theodore was fascinated. He was no abstainer and saw nothing wrong in
+entering a public-house, although it never occurred to him to do so.
+He followed, though not without a slight feeling of uneasiness.
+
+They were received in the hall by two girls. "Good evening, little
+doves," said the lieutenant, and kissed them both on the lips. "Let me
+introduce you to my learned brother; he's very young and innocent, not
+at all like me; what do you say, Jossa?"
+
+The girls looked shyly at Theodore, who did not know which way to turn.
+His brother's language appeared to him unutterably impudent.
+
+On their way upstairs they met a dark-haired little girl, who had
+evidently been crying; she looked quiet and modest and made a good
+impression on Theodore.
+
+The lieutenant did not kiss her, but he pulled out his handkerchief
+and dried her eyes. Then he ordered an extravagant supper.
+
+They were in a bright and pretty room, hung with mirrors and
+containing a piano, a perfect room for banquetting. The lieutenant
+opened the piano with his sword, and before Theodore knew where he
+was, he was sitting on the music-stool, and his hands were resting on
+the keyboard.
+
+"Play us a waltz," commanded the lieutenant, and Theodore played a
+waltz. The lieutenant took off his sword and danced with Jossa;
+Theodore heard his spurs knocking against the legs of the chairs and
+tables. Then he threw himself on the sofa and shouted:
+
+"Come here, ye slaves, and fan me!"
+
+Theodore began to play softly and presently he was absorbed in the
+music of Gounod's _Faust_. He did not dare to turn round.
+
+"Go and kiss him," whispered the brother.
+
+But the girls felt shy. They were almost afraid of him and his
+melancholy music.
+
+The boldest of them, however, went up to the piano.
+
+"You are playing from the Freischuetz, aren't you?" she asked.
+
+"No," said Theodore, politely, "I'm playing Gounod's _Faust_."
+
+"Your brother looks frightfully respectable," said the little dark
+one, whose name was Rieke; "he's different to you, you old villain."
+
+"Oh! well, he's going into the Church," whispered the lieutenant.
+
+These words made a great impression on the girls, and henceforth they
+only kissed the lieutenant when Theodore's back was turned, and looked
+at Theodore shyly and apprehensively, like fowls at a chained mastiff.
+
+Supper appeared, a great number of courses. There were eighteen dishes,
+not counting the hot ones.
+
+Gustav poured out the liqueurs.
+
+"Your health, you old hypocrite!" he laughed.
+
+Theodore swallowed the liqueur. A delicious warmth ran through his
+limbs, a thin, warm veil fell over his eyes, he felt ravenous like a
+starving beast. What a banquet it was! The fresh salmon with its
+peculiar flavour, and the dill with its narcotic aroma; the radishes
+which seem to scrape the throat and call for beer; the small
+beef-steaks and sweet Portuguese onions, which made him think of
+dancing girls; the fried lobster which smelt of the sea; the chicken
+stuffed with parsley which reminded him of the gardener, and the first
+gerkins with their poisonous flavour of verdigris which made such a
+jolly, crackling sound between his crunching teeth. The porter flowed
+through his veins like hot streams of lava; they drank champagne after
+the strawberries; a waitress brought the foaming drink which bubbled
+in the glasses like a fountain. They poured out a glass for her. And
+then they talked of all sorts of things.
+
+Theodore sat there like a tree in which the sap is rising. He had
+eaten a good supper and felt as if a whole volcano was seething in his
+inside. New thoughts, new emotions, new ideas, new points of view
+fluttered round his brow like butterflies. He went to the piano and
+played, he himself knew not what. The ivory keys under his hands were
+like a heap of bones from which his spirit drew life and melody.
+
+He did not know how long he had been playing, but when he turned,
+round he saw his brother entering the room. He looked like a god,
+radiating life and strength. Behind him came Rieke with a bowl of
+punch, and immediately after all the girls came upstairs. The
+lieutenant drank to each one of them separately; Theodore found that
+everything was as it should be and finally became so bold that he
+kissed Rieke on the shoulder. But she looked annoyed and drew away
+from him, and he felt ashamed.
+
+When Theodore found himself alone in his room, he had a feeling as if
+the whole world were turned upside down. He tore the text from the
+wall, not because he no longer believed in Jesus, but because its
+being pinned against the wall struck him as a species of bragging. He
+was amazed to find that religion sat on him as loosely as a Sunday
+suit, and he asked himself whether it was not unseemly to go about
+during the whole week in Sunday clothes. After all he was but an
+ordinary, commonplace person with whom he was well content, and he
+came to the conclusion that he had a better chance of living in peace
+with himself if he lived a simple, unpretentious, unassuming life.
+
+He slept soundly during the night, undisturbed by dreams.
+
+When he arose on the following morning, his pale cheeks looked fuller
+and there was a new gladness in his heart. He went out for a walk and
+suddenly found himself in the country. The thought struck him that he
+might go to the restaurant and look up the girls. He went into the
+large room; there he found Rieke and Jossa alone, in morning dresses,
+snubbing gooseberries. Before he knew what he was doing, he was sitting
+at the table beside them with a pair of scissors in his hand, helping
+them. They talked of Theodore's brother and the pleasant evening they
+had spent together. Not a single loose remark was made. They were just
+like a happy family; surely he had fallen in good hands, he was among
+friends.
+
+When they had finished with the gooseberries, he ordered coffee and
+invited the girls to share it with him. Later on the proprietress came
+and read the paper to them. He felt at home.
+
+He repeated his visit. One afternoon he went upstairs, to look for
+Rieke. She was sewing a seam. Theodore asked her whether he was in her
+way. "Not at all," she replied, "on the contrary." They talked of his
+brother who was away at camp, and would be away for another two
+months. Presently he ordered some punch and their intimacy grew.
+
+On another occasion Theodore met her in the Park. She was gathering
+flowers. They both sat down in the grass. She was wearing a light
+summer dress, the material of which was so thin that it plainly
+revealed her slight girlish figure. He put his arms round her waist
+and kissed her. She returned his kisses and he drew her to him in a
+passionate embrace; but she tore herself away and told him gravely
+that if he did not behave himself she would never meet him again.
+
+They went on meeting one another for two months. Theodore had fallen
+in love with her. He had long and serious conversations with her on
+the most sacred duties of life, on love, on religion, on everything,
+and between-whiles he spoke to her of his passion. But she invariably
+confounded him with his own arguments. Then he felt ashamed of having
+harboured base thoughts of so innocent a girl, and finally his passion
+was transformed into admiration for this poor little thing, who had
+managed to keep herself unspotted in the midst of temptation.
+
+He had given up the idea of going into the Church; he determined to
+take the doctor's degree and--who knows--perhaps marry Rieke. He read
+poetry to her while she did needlework. She let him kiss her as much
+as he liked, she allowed him to fondle and caress her; but that was
+the limit.
+
+At last his brother returned from camp. He immediately ordered a
+banquet at "The Equerry"; Theodore was invited. But he was made to
+play all the time. He was in the middle of a waltz, to which nobody
+danced, when he happened to look round; he was alone. He rose and went
+into the corridor, passed a long row of doors, and at last came to a
+bed-room. There he saw a sight which made him turn round, seize his
+hat and disappear into the darkness.
+
+It was dawn when he reached his own bed-room, alone, annihilated,
+robbed of his faith in life, in love, and, of course, in women, for to
+him there was but one woman in the world, and that was Rieke from "The
+Equerry." On the fifteenth of September he went to Upsala to study
+theology.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The years passed. His sound common-sense was slowly extinguished by
+all the nonsense with which he had to fill his brain daily and hourly.
+But at night he was powerless to resist. Nature burst her bonds and
+took by force what rebellious man denied her. He lost his health; all
+his skull bones were visible in his haggard face, his complexion was
+sallow and his skin looked damp and clammy; ugly pimples appeared
+between the scanty locks of his beard. His eyes were without lustre,
+his hands so emaciated that the joints seemed to poke through the
+skin. He looked like the illustration to an essay on human vice, and
+yet he lived a perfectly pure life.
+
+One day the professor of Christian Ethics, a married man with very
+strict ideas on morality, called on him and asked him pointblank
+whether he had anything on his conscience; if so, he advised him to
+make a clean breast of it. Theodore answered that he had nothing to
+confess, but that he was unhappy. Thereupon the professor exhorted him
+to watch and pray and be strong.
+
+His brother had written him a long letter, begging him not to take a
+certain stupid matter too much to heart. He told him that it was absurd
+to take a girl seriously. His philosophy, and he had always found it
+answering admirably, was to pay debts incurred and go; to play while
+one was young, for the gravity of life made itself felt quite soon enough.
+Marriage was nothing but a civil institution for the protection of the
+children. There was plenty of time for it.
+
+Theodore replied at some length in a letter imbued with true Christian
+sentiment, which the lieutenant left unanswered.
+
+After passing his first examination in the spring, Theodore was
+obliged to spend a summer at Skoefde, in order to undergo the cold
+water cure. In the autumn he returned to Upsala. His newly-regained
+strength was merely so much fresh fuel to the fire.
+
+Matters grew worse and worse. His hair had grown so thin that the
+scalp was plainly visible. He walked with dragging footsteps and
+whenever his fellow students met him in the street, they cut him as if
+he were possessed of all the vices. He noticed it and shunned them in
+his turn. He only left his rooms in the evening. He did not dare to go
+to bed at night. The iron which he had taken to excess, had ruined his
+digestion, and in the following summer the doctors sent him to
+Karlsbad.
+
+On his return to Upsala, in the autumn, a rumour got abroad, an ugly
+rumour, which hung over the town like a black cloud. It was as if a
+drain had been left open and men were suddenly reminded that the town,
+that splendid creation of civilisation, was built over a sea of
+corruption, which might at any moment burst its bonds and poison the
+inhabitants. It was said that Theodore Wennerstroem, in a paroxysm of
+passion had assaulted one of his friends, and the rumour did not lie.
+
+His father went to Upsala and had an interview with the Dean of the
+Theological Faculty. The professor of pathology was present. What was
+to be done? The doctor remained silent. They pressed him for his
+opinion.
+
+"Since you ask me," he said, "I must give you an answer; but you know
+as well as I do that there is but one remedy."
+
+"And that is?" asked the theologian.
+
+"Need you ask?" replied the doctor.
+
+"Yes," said the theologian, who was a married man. "Surely, nature
+does not require immorality from a man?"
+
+The father said that he quite understood the case, but that he was
+afraid of making recommendations to his son, on account of the risks
+the latter would run.
+
+"If he can't take care of himself he must be a fool," said the doctor.
+
+The Dean requested them to continue such an agitating conversation in
+a more suitable place.... He himself had nothing more to add.
+
+This ended the matter.
+
+Since Theodore was a member of the upper classes the scandal was
+hushed up. A few years later he passed his final, and was sent by the
+doctor to Spa. The amount of quinine which he had taken had affected
+his knees and he walked with two sticks. At Spa he looked so ill that
+he was a conspicuous figure even in a crowd of invalids.
+
+But an unmarried woman of thirty-five, a German, took compassion on
+the unhappy man. She spent many hours with him in a lonely summer
+arbour in the park, discussing the problems of life. She was a member
+of a big evangelical society, whose object was the raising of the
+moral standard. She showed him prospectuses for newspapers and
+magazines, the principal mission of which was the suppression of
+prostitution.
+
+"Look at me," she said, "I am thirty-five years old and enjoy
+excellent health! What fools' talk it is to say that immorality is a
+necessary evil. I have watched and fought a good fight for Christ's
+sake."
+
+The young clergyman silently compared her well-developed figure, her
+large hips, with his own wasted body.
+
+"What a difference there is between human beings in this world," was
+his unspoken comment.
+
+In the autumn the Rev. Theodore Wennerstroem and Sophia Leidschuetz,
+spinster, were engaged to be married.
+
+"Saved!" sighed the father, when the news reached him in his house at
+Stockholm.
+
+"I wonder how it will end," thought the brother in his barracks. "I'm
+afraid that my poor Theodore is 'one of those Asra who die when they
+love.'"
+
+Theodore Wennerstroem was married. Nine months after the wedding his
+wife presented him with a boy who suffered from rickets--another
+thirteen months and Theodore Wennerstroem had breathed his last.
+
+The doctor who filled up the certificate of death, looked at the fine
+healthy woman, who stood weeping by the small coffin which contained
+the skeleton of her young husband of not much over twenty years.
+
+"The plus was too great, the minus too small," he thought, "and
+therefore the plus devoured the minus."
+
+But the father, who received the news of his son's death on a Sunday,
+sat down to read a sermon. When he had finished, he fell into a brown
+study.
+
+"There must be something very wrong with a world where virtue is
+rewarded with death," he thought.
+
+And the virtuous widow, _nee_ Leidschuetz, had two more husbands and
+eight children, wrote pamphlets on overpopulation and immorality. But
+her brother-in-law called her a cursed woman who killed her husbands.
+
+The anything but virtuous lieutenant married and was father of six
+children. He got promotion and lived happily to the end of his life.
+
+
+
+
+LOVE AND BREAD
+
+
+The assistant had not thought of studying the price of wheat before he
+called on the major to ask him for the hand of his daughter; but the
+major had studied it.
+
+"I love her," said the assistant.
+
+"What's your salary?" said the old man.
+
+"Well, twelve hundred crowns, at present; but we love one another...."
+
+"That has nothing to do with me; twelve hundred crowns is not enough."
+
+"And then I make a little in addition to my salary, and Louisa knows
+that my heart...."
+
+"Don't talk nonsense! How much in addition to your salary?"
+
+He seized paper and pencil.
+
+"And my feelings...."
+
+"How much in addition to your salary?"
+
+And he drew hieroglyphics on the blotting paper.
+
+"Oh! We'll get on well enough, if only...."
+
+"Are you going to answer my question or not? How much in addition to
+your salary? Figures! figures, my boy! Facts!"
+
+"I do translations at ten crowns a sheet; I give French lessons, I am
+promised proof-correcting...."
+
+"Promises aren't facts! Figures, my boy! Figures! Look here, now, I'll
+put it down. What are you translating?"
+
+"What am I translating? I can't tell you straight off."
+
+"You can't tell me straight off? You are engaged on a translation, you
+say; can't you tell me what it is? Don't talk such rubbish!"
+
+"I am translating Guizot's _History of Civilisation_, twenty-five
+sheets."
+
+"At ten crowns a sheet makes two hundred and fifty crowns. And then?"
+
+"And then? How can I tell beforehand?"
+
+"Indeed, can't you tell beforehand? But you ought to know. You seem to
+imagine that being married simply means living together and amusing
+yourselves! No, my dear boy, there will be children, and children
+require feeding and clothing."
+
+"There needn't be babies directly, if one loves _as we love_ one
+another."
+
+"How the dickens do you love one another?"
+
+"_As we love_ one another." He put his hand on his waistcoat.
+
+"And won't there be any children if people love as you love? You must
+be mad! But you are a decent, respectable member of society, and
+therefore I'll give my consent; but make good use of the time, my boy,
+and increase your income, for hard times are coming. The price of
+wheat is rising."
+
+The assistant grew red in the face when he heard the last words, but
+his joy at the old man's consent was so great that he seized his hand
+and kissed it. Heaven knew how happy he was! When he walked for the
+first time down the street with his future bride on his arm, they both
+radiated light; it seemed to them that the passers-by stood still and
+lined the road in honour of their triumphal march; and they walked
+along with proud eyes, squared shoulders and elastic steps.
+
+In the evening he called at her house; they sat down in the centre of
+the room and read proofs; she helped him. "He's a good sort," chuckled
+the old man. When they had finished, he took her in his arms and said:
+"Now we have earned three crowns," and then he kissed her. On the
+following evening they went to the theatre and he took her home in a
+cab, and that cost twelve crowns.
+
+Sometimes, when he ought to have given a lesson in the evening, he (is
+there anything a man will not do for love's sake?) cancelled his lesson
+and took her out for a walk instead.
+
+But the wedding-day approached. They were very busy. They had to
+choose the furniture. They began with the most important purchases.
+Louisa had not intended to be present when he bought the bedroom
+furniture, but when it came to the point she went with him. They
+bought two beds, which were, of course, to stand side by side. The
+furniture had to be walnut, every single piece real walnut. And they
+must have spring mattresses covered with red and white striped tick,
+and bolsters filled with down; and two eiderdown quilts, exactly
+alike. Louisa chose blue, because she was very fair.
+
+They went to the best stores. They could not do without a red
+hanging-lamp and a Venus made of plaster of Paris. Then they bought a
+dinner-service; and six dozen differently shaped glasses with cut
+edges; and knives and forks, grooved and engraved with their initials.
+And then the kitchen utensils! Mama had to accompany them to see to
+those.
+
+And what a lot he had to do besides! There were bills to accept,
+journeys to the banks and interviews with tradespeople and artisans;
+a flat had to be found and curtains had to be put up. He saw to
+everything. Of course he had to neglect his work; but once he was
+married, he would soon make up for it.
+
+They were only going to take two rooms to begin with, for they were
+going to be frightfully economical. And as they were only going to
+have two rooms, they could afford to furnish them well. He rented two
+rooms and a kitchen on the first floor in Government Street, for six
+hundred crowns. When Louisa remarked that they might just as well have
+taken three rooms and a kitchen on the fourth floor for five hundred
+crowns, he was a little embarrassed; but what did it matter if only
+they loved one another? Yes, of course, Louisa agreed, but couldn't
+they have loved one another just as well in four rooms at a lower
+rent, as in three at a higher? Yes, he admitted that he had been
+foolish, but what _did_ it matter so long as they loved one another?
+
+The rooms were furnished. The bed-room looked like a little temple.
+The two beds stood side by side, like two carriages. The rays of the
+sun fell on the blue eiderdown quilt, the white, white sheets and the
+little pillow-slips which an elderly maiden aunt had embroidered with
+their monogram; the latter consisted of two huge letters, formed of
+flowers, joined together in one single embrace, and kissing here and
+there, wherever they touched, at the corners. The bride had her own
+little alcove, which was screened off by a Japanese screen. The
+drawing-room, which was also dining-room, study and morning-room,
+contained her piano, (which had cost twelve hundred crowns) his
+writing-table with twelve pigeon-holes, (every single piece of it real
+walnut) a pier-glass, armchairs; a sideboard and a dining-table. "It
+looks as if nice people lived here," they said, and they could not
+understand why people wanted a separate dining-room, which always looked
+so cheerless with its cane chairs.
+
+The wedding took place on a Saturday. Sunday dawned, the first day of
+their married life. Oh! what a life it was! Wasn't it lovely to be
+married! Wasn't marriage a splendid institution! One was allowed one's
+own way in everything, and parents and relations came and congratulated
+one into the bargain.
+
+At nine o'clock in the morning their bedroom was still dark. He
+wouldn't open the shutters to let in daylight, but re-lighted the red
+lamp which threw its bewitching light on the blue eiderdown, the white
+sheets, a little crumpled now, and the Venus made of plaster of Paris,
+who stood there rosy-red and without shame. And the red light also
+fell on his little wife who nestled in her pillows with a look of
+contrition, and yet so refreshed as if she had never slept so well in
+all her life. There was no traffic in the street to-day for it was
+Sunday, and the church-bells were calling people to the morning
+service with exulting, eager voices, as if they wanted all the world
+to come to church and praise Him who had created men and women.
+
+He whispered to his little bride to shut her eyes so that he might get
+up and order breakfast. She buried her head in the pillows, while he
+slipped on his dressing-gown and went behind the screen to dress.
+
+A broad radiant path of sunlight lay on the sitting-room floor; he did
+not know whether it was spring or summer, autumn or winter; he only
+knew that it was Sunday!
+
+His bachelor life was receding into the background like something ugly
+and dark; the sight of his little home stirred his heart with a faint
+recollection of the home of his childhood, and at the same time held
+out a glorious promise for the future.
+
+How strong he felt! The future appeared to him like a mountain coming
+to meet him. He would breathe on it and the mountain would fall down
+at his feet like sand; he would fly away, far above gables and
+chimneys, holding his little wife in his arm.
+
+He collected his clothes which were scattered all over the room; he
+found his white neck-tie hanging on a picture frame; it looked like a
+big white butterfly.
+
+He went into the kitchen. How the new copper vessels sparkled, the new
+tin kettles shone! And all this belonged to him and to her! He called
+the maid who came out of her room in her petticoat. But he did not
+notice it, nor did he notice that her shoulders were bare. For him
+there was but one woman in all the world. He spoke to the girl as a
+father would to his daughter. He told her to go to the restaurant and
+order breakfast, at once, a first-rate breakfast. Porter and Burgundy!
+The manager knew his taste. She was to give him his regards.
+
+He went out of the kitchen and knocked at the bed-room door.
+
+"May I come in?"
+
+There was a little startled scream.
+
+"Oh, no, darling, wait a bit!"
+
+He laid the breakfast table himself. When the breakfast was brought
+from the restaurant, he served it on her new breakfast set. He folded
+the dinner napkins according to all the rules of art. He wiped the
+wine-glasses, and finally took her bridal-bouquet and put it in a vase
+before her place.
+
+When she emerged from her bed-room in her embroidered morning gown and
+stepped into the brilliant sunlight, she felt just a tiny bit faint;
+he helped her into the armchair, made her drink a little liqueur out
+of a liqueur glass and eat a caviare sandwich.
+
+What fun it all was! One could please oneself when one was married.
+What would Mama have said if she had seen her daughter drinking
+liqueurs at this hour of the morning!
+
+He waited on her as if she were still his fiancee. What a breakfast
+they were having on the first morning after their wedding! And nobody
+had a right to say a word. Everything was perfectly right and proper,
+one could enjoy oneself with the very best of consciences, and that
+was the most delightful part of it all. It was not for the first time
+that he was eating such a breakfast, but what a difference between
+then and now! He had been restless and dissatisfied then; he could not
+bear to think of it, now. And as he drank a glass of genuine Swedish
+porter after the oysters, he felt the deepest contempt for all
+bachelors.
+
+"How stupid of people not to get married! Such selfishness! They ought
+to be taxed like dogs."
+
+"I'm sorry for those poor men who haven't the means to get married,"
+replied his demure little wife kindly, "for I am sure, if they had the
+means they would all get married."
+
+A little pang shot through the assistant's heart; for a moment he felt
+afraid, lest he had been a little too venturesome. All his happiness
+rested on the solution of a financial problem, and if, if.... Pooh! A
+glass of Burgundy! Now he would work! They should see!
+
+"Game? With cranberries and cucumbers!" The young wife was a little
+startled, but it was really delicious.
+
+"Lewis, darling," she put a trembling little hand on his arm, "can we
+afford it?"
+
+Fortunately she said "we."
+
+"Pooh! It doesn't matter for once! Later on we can dine on potatoes
+and herrings."
+
+"Can you eat potatoes and herrings?"
+
+"I should think so!"
+
+"When you have been drinking more than is good for you, and expect a
+beefsteak after the herring?"
+
+"Nonsense! Nothing of the kind! Your health, sweetheart! The game is
+excellent! So are these artichokes!"
+
+"No, but you are mad, darling! Artichokes at this time of the year!
+What a bill you will have to pay!"
+
+"Bill! Aren't they good? Don't you think that it is glorious to be
+alive? Oh! It's splendid, splendid!"
+
+At six o'clock in the afternoon a carriage drove up to the front door.
+The young wife would have been angry if it had not been so pleasant to
+loll luxuriously on the soft cushions, while they were being slowly
+driven to the Deer Park.
+
+"It's just like lying on a couch," whispered Lewis.
+
+She playfully hit his fingers with her sunshade. Mutual acquaintances
+bowed to them from the footpath. Friends waved their hands to him as
+if they were saying:
+
+"Hallo! you rascal, you have come into a fortune!"
+
+How small the passers-by looked, how smooth the street was, how pleasant
+their ride on springs and cushions!
+
+Life should always be like that.
+
+It went on for a whole month. Balls, visits, dinners, theatres.
+Sometimes, of course, they remained at home. And at home it was more
+pleasant than anywhere else. How lovely, for instance, to carry off
+one's wife from her parents' house, after supper, without saying as
+much as "by your leave," put her into a closed carriage, slam the
+door, nod to her people and say: "Now we're off home, to our own four
+walls! And there we'll do exactly what we like!"
+
+And then to have a little supper at home and sit over it, talking and
+gossiping until the small hours of the morning.
+
+Lewis was always very sensible at home, at least in theory. One day
+his wife put him to the test by giving him salt salmon, potatoes
+boiled in milk and oatmeal soup for dinner. Oh! how he enjoyed it! He
+was sick of elaborate menus.
+
+On the following Friday, when she again suggested salt salmon for
+dinner, Lewis came home, carrying two ptarmigans! He called to her
+from the threshold:
+
+"Just imagine, Lou, a most extraordinary thing happened! A most
+extraordinary thing!"
+
+"Well, what is it?"
+
+"You'll hardly believe me when I tell you that I bought a brace of
+ptarmigans, bought them myself at the market for--guess!"
+
+His little wife seemed more annoyed than curious.
+
+"Just think! One crown the two!"
+
+"I have bought ptarmigans at eightpence the brace; but--" she added in
+a more conciliatory tone, so as not to upset him altogether, "that was
+in a very cold winter."
+
+"Well, but you must admit that I bought them very cheaply."
+
+Was there anything she would not admit in order to see him happy?
+
+She had ordered boiled groats for dinner, as an experiment. But after
+Lewis had eaten a ptarmigan, he regretted that he could not eat as
+much of the groats as he would have liked, in order to show her that
+he was really very fond of groats. He liked groats very much indeed--milk
+did not agree with him after his attack of ague. He couldn't take milk,
+but groats he would like to see on his table every evening, every blessed
+evening of his life, if only she wouldn't be angry with him.
+
+And groats never again appeared on his table.
+
+When they had been married for six weeks, the young wife fell ill. She
+suffered from headaches and sickness. It could not be anything serious,
+just a little cold. But this sickness? Had she eaten anything which had
+disagreed with her? Hadn't all the copper vessels new coatings of tin?
+He sent for the doctor. The doctor smiled and said it was all right.
+
+"What was all right? Oh! Nonsense! It wasn't possible. How could it
+have been possible? No, surely, the bed-room paper was to blame. It
+must contain arsenic. Let us send a piece to the chemist's at once and
+have it tested."
+
+"Entirely free from arsenic," reported the chemist.
+
+"How strange! No arsenic in the wall papers?"
+
+The young wife was still ill. He consulted a medical book and whispered
+a question in her ear. "There now! a hot bath!"
+
+Four weeks later the midwife declared that everything was "as it
+should be."
+
+"As it should be? Well, of course! Only it was somewhat premature!"
+
+But as it could not, be helped, they were delighted. Fancy, a baby!
+They would be papa and mama! What should they call him? For, of course,
+it would be a boy. No doubt, it would. But now she had a serious
+conversation with her husband! There had been no translating or
+proof-correcting since their marriage. And his salary alone was not
+sufficient.
+
+"Yes, they had given no thought to the morrow. But, dear me, one was
+young only once! Now, however, there would be a change."
+
+On the following morning the assistant called on an old schoolfriend,
+a registrar, to ask him to stand security for a loan.
+
+"You see, my dear fellow, when one is about to become a father, one
+has to consider how to meet increasing expenses."
+
+"Quite so, old man," answered the registrar, "therefore I have been
+unable to get married. But you are fortunate in having the means."
+
+The assistant hesitated to make his request. How could he have the
+audacity to ask this poor bachelor to help him to provide the expenses
+for the coming event? This bachelor, who had not the means to found a
+family of his own? He could not bring himself to do it.
+
+When he came home to dinner, his wife told him that two gentlemen had
+called to see him.
+
+"What did they look like? Were they young? Did they wear eye-glasses?
+Then there was no doubt, they were two lieutenants, old friends of his
+whom he had met at Vaxholm."
+
+"No, they couldn't have been lieutenants; they were too old for that."
+
+"Then he knew; they were old college friends from Upsala, probably P.
+who was a lecturer, and O. who was a curate, now. They had come to see
+how their old pal was shaping as a husband."
+
+"No, they didn't come from Upsala, they came from Stockholm."
+
+The maid was called in and cross-examined. She thought the callers had
+been shabbily dressed and had carried sticks.
+
+"Sticks! I can't make out what sort of people they can have been.
+Well, we'll know soon enough, as they said they would call again. But
+to change the subject, I happened to see a basket of hothouse
+strawberries at a really ridiculous price; it really is absurd! Just
+imagine, hothouse strawberries at one and sixpence a basket! And at
+this time of the year!"
+
+"But, my darling, what is this extravagance to lead to?"
+
+"It'll be all right. I have got an order for a translation this very day."
+
+"But you are in debt, Lewis?"
+
+"Trifles! Mere nothings! It'll be all right when I take up a big loan,
+presently."
+
+"A loan! But that'll be a new debt!"
+
+"True! But there'll be easy terms! Don't let's talk business now! Aren't
+these strawberries delicious? What? A glass of sherry with them would be
+tip-top. Don't you think so? Lina, run round to the stores and fetch a
+bottle of sherry, the best they have."
+
+After his afternoon nap, his wife insisted on a serious conversation.
+
+"You won't be angry, dear, will you?"
+
+"Angry? I! Good heavens, no! Is it about household expenses?"
+
+"Yes! We owe money at the stores! The butcher is pressing for payment;
+the man from the livery stables has called for his money; it's most
+unpleasant."
+
+"Is that all? I shall pay them to the last farthing to-morrow. How
+dare they worry you about such trifles? They shall be paid to-morrow,
+but they shall lose a customer. Now, don't let's talk about it any
+more. Come out for a walk. No carriage! Well, we'll take the car to
+the Deer Park, it will cheer us up."
+
+They went to the Deer Park. They asked for a private room at the
+restaurant, and people stared at them and whispered.
+
+"They think we are out on a spree," he laughed. "What fun! What madness!"
+
+But his wife did not like it.
+
+They had a big bill to pay.
+
+"If only we had stayed at home! We might have bought such a lot of things
+for the money."
+
+Months elapsed. The great event was coming nearer and nearer. A cradle
+had to be bought and baby-clothes. A number of things were wanted. The
+young husband was out on business all day long. The price of wheat had
+risen. Hard times were at hand. He could get no translations, no
+proof-correcting. Men had become materialists. They didn't spend money
+on books, they bought food. What a prosaic period we were living in!
+Ideals were melting away, one after the other, and ptarmigans were not
+to be had under two crowns the brace. The livery stables would not
+provide carriages for nothing for the cab-proprietors had wives and
+families to support, just as everybody else; at the stores cash had to
+be paid for goods, Oh! what realists they all were!
+
+The great day had come at last. It was evening. He must run for the
+midwife. And while his wife suffered all the pangs of childbirth, he
+had to go down into the hall and pacify the creditors.
+
+At last he held a daughter in his arms. His tears fell on the baby,
+for now he realised his responsibility, a responsibility which he was
+unable to shoulder. He made new resolutions. But his nerves were
+unstrung. He was working at a translation which he seemed unable to
+finish, for he had to be constantly out on business.
+
+He rushed to his father-in-law, who was staying in town, to bring him
+the glad news.
+
+"We have a little daughter!"
+
+"Well and good," replied his father-in-law; "can you support a child?"
+
+"Not at present; for heaven's sake, help us, father!"
+
+"I'll tide you over your present difficulties. I can't do more. My
+means are only sufficient to support my own family."
+
+The patient required chickens which he bought himself at the market,
+and wine at six crowns the bottle. It had to be the very best.
+
+The midwife expected a hundred crowns.
+
+"Why should we pay her less than others? Hasn't she just received a
+cheque for a hundred crowns from the captain?"
+
+Very soon the young wife was up again. She looked like a girl, as
+slender as a willow, a little pale, it was true, but the pallor suited
+her.
+
+The old man called and had a private conversation with his son-in-law.
+
+"No more children, for the present," he said, "or you'll be ruined."
+
+"What language from a father! Aren't we married! Don't we love one
+another? Aren't we to have a family?"
+
+"Yes, but not until you can provide for them. It's all very fine to
+love one another, but you musn't forget that you have responsibilities."
+
+His father-in-law, too, had become a materialist. Oh! what a miserable
+world it was! A world without ideals!
+
+The home was undermined, but love survived, for love was strong, and
+the hearts of the young couple were soft. The bailiff, on the contrary,
+was anything but soft. Distraint was imminent, and bankruptcy threatened.
+Well, let them distrain then!
+
+The father-in-law arrived with a large travelling coach to fetch his
+daughter and grand-child. He warned his son-in-law not to show his
+face at his house until he could pay his debts and make a home for his
+wife and child. He said nothing to his daughter, but it seemed to him
+that he was bringing home a girl who had been led astray. It was as if
+he had lent his innocent child to a casual admirer and now received
+her back "dishonoured." She would have preferred to stay with her
+husband, but he had no home to offer her.
+
+And so the husband of one year's standing was left behind to watch the
+pillaging of his home, if he could call it his home, for he had paid
+for nothing. The two men with spectacles carted away the beds and
+bedclothes; the copper kettles and tin vessels; the dinner set, the
+chandelier and the candlesticks; everything, everything!
+
+He was left alone in the two empty, wretched rooms! If only _she_ had
+been left to him! But what should she do here, in these empty rooms?
+No, she was better off where she was! She was being taken care of.
+
+Now the struggle for a livelihood began in bitter earnest. He found
+work at a daily paper as a proof-corrector. He had to be at the office
+at midnight; at three in the morning his work was done. He did not
+lose his berth, for bankruptcy had been avoided, but he had lost all
+chance of promotion.
+
+Later on he is permitted to visit wife and child once a week, but he
+is never allowed to see her alone. He spends Saturday night in a tiny
+room, close to his father-in-law's bedroom. On Sunday morning he has
+to return to town, for the paper appears on Monday morning.... He says
+good-bye to his wife and child who are allowed to accompany him as far
+as the garden gate, he waves his hand to them once more from the
+furthest hillock, and succumbs to his wretchedness, his misery, his
+humiliation. And she is no less unhappy.
+
+He has calculated that it will take him twenty years to pay his debts.
+And then? Even then he cannot maintain a wife and child. And his
+prospects? He has none! If his father-in-law should die, his wife and
+child would be thrown on the street; he cannot venture to look forward
+to the death of their only support.
+
+Oh! How cruel it is of nature to provide food for all her creatures,
+leaving the children of men alone to starve! Oh! How cruel, how cruel!
+that life has not ptarmigans and strawberries to give to all men. How
+cruel! How cruel!
+
+
+
+
+COMPELLED TO
+
+
+Punctually at half past nine on a winter evening he appears at the
+door leading to the glass-roofed verandah of the restaurant. While,
+with mathematical precision, he takes off his gloves, he peers over
+his dim spectacles, first to the right, then to the left, to find out
+whether any of his acquaintances are present. Then he hangs up his
+overcoat on its special hook, the one to the right of the fireplace.
+Gustav, the waiter, an old pupil of his, flies to his table and,
+without waiting for an order, brushes the crumbs off the tablecloth,
+stirs up the mustard, smooths the salt in the salt-cellar and turns
+over the dinner napkin. Then he fetches, still without any order, a
+bottle of Medhamra, opens half a bottle of Union beer and, merely for
+appearance sake, hands the schoolmaster the bill of fare.
+
+"Crabs?" he asks, more as a matter of form than because there is any
+need of the question.
+
+"Female crabs," answers the schoolmaster.
+
+"Large, female crabs," repeats Gustav, walks to the speaking tube
+which communicates with the kitchen, and shouts: "Large female crabs
+for Mr. Blom, and plenty of dill."
+
+He fetches butter and cheese, cuts two very thin slices of rye-bread,
+and places them on the schoolmaster's table. The latter has in the
+meantime searched the verandah for the evening papers, but has only
+found the official _Post_. To make up for this very poor success, he
+takes the _Daily Journal_, which he had not had time to finish at
+lunch, and after first opening and refolding the _Post_, and putting
+it on the top of the bread basket on his left, sits down to read it.
+He ornaments the rye-bread with geometrical butter hieroglyphics, cuts
+off a piece of cheese in the shape of a rectangle, fills his liqueur
+glass three quarters full and raises it to his lips, hesitates as if
+the little glass contained physic, throws back his head and says: Ugh!
+
+He has done this for twelve years and will continue doing it until the
+day of his death.
+
+As soon as the crabs, six of them, have been put before him, he
+examines them as to their sex, and everything being as it should be,
+makes ready to enjoy himself. He tucks a corner of his dinner napkin
+into his collar, places two slices of thin bread and cheese by the
+side of his plate and pours out a glass of beer and half a glass of
+liqueur. Then he takes the little crab-knife and business begins. He
+is the only man in Sweden who knows how to eat a crab, and whenever he
+sees anybody else engaged in the same pursuit, he tells him that he
+has no idea how to do it. He makes an incision all round the head, and
+a hole against which he presses his lips and begins to suck.
+
+"This," he says, "is the best part of the whole animal."
+
+He severs the thorax from the lower part, puts his teeth to the body
+and drinks deep draughts; he sucks the little legs as if they were
+asparagus, eats a bit of dill, and takes a drink of beer and a mouthful
+of rye-bread. When he has carefully taken the shell off the claws and
+sucked even the tiniest tubes, he eats the flesh; last of all he attacks
+the lower part of the body. When he has eaten three crabs, he drinks half
+a glass of liqueur and reads the promotions in the _Post_.
+
+He has done this for twelve years and will continue doing it until he
+dies.
+
+He was just twenty years old when he first began to patronise the
+restaurant, now he is thirty-two, and Gustav has been a waiter for ten
+years in the same place. Not one of its frequenters has known the
+restaurant longer than the school-master, not even the proprietor who
+took it over eight years ago. He has watched generations of diners
+come and go; some came for a year, some for two, some for five years;
+then they disappeared, went to another restaurant, left the town or
+got married. He feels very old, although he is only thirty-two! The
+restaurant is his home, for his furnished room is nothing but the
+place where he sleeps.
+
+It is ten o'clock. He leaves his table and goes to the back room where
+his grog awaits him. This is the time when the bookseller arrives.
+They play a game of chess or talk about books. At half-past ten the
+second violin from the Dramatic Theatre drops in. He is an old Pole
+who, after 1864, escaped to Sweden, and now makes a living by his
+former hobby. Both the Pole and the bookseller are over fifty, but
+they get on with the schoolmaster as if he were a contemporary.
+
+The proprietor has his place behind the counter. He is an old sea
+captain who fell in love with the proprietress and married her. She
+rules in the kitchen, but the sliding panel is always open, so that
+she can keep an eye on the old man, lest he should take a glass too
+much before closing time. Not until the gas has been turned out, and
+the old man is ready to go to bed, is he allowed a nightcap in the
+shape of a stiff glass of rum and water.
+
+At eleven o'clock the young bloods begin to arrive; they approach the
+counter diffidently and ask the proprietor in a whisper whether any of
+the private rooms upstairs are disengaged, and then there is a rustling
+of skirts in the hall and cautious footsteps are creeping upstairs.
+
+"Well," says the bookseller, who has suddenly found a topic of
+conversation, "when are you going to be married, Blom, old man?"
+
+"I haven't the means to get married," answered the school-master. "Why
+don't you take a wife to your bosom yourself?"
+
+"No woman would have me, now that my head looks like an old,
+leather-covered trunk," says the bookseller. "And, moreover, there's
+my old Stafva, you know."
+
+Stafva was a legendary person in whom nobody believed. She was the
+incarnation of the bookseller's unrealised dreams.
+
+"But you, Mr. Potocki?" suggested the schoolmaster.
+
+"He's been married once, that's enough," replies the bookseller.
+
+The Pole nods his head like a metrometer.
+
+"Yes, I was married very happily. Ugh!" he says and finishes his grog.
+
+"Well," continues the schoolmaster, "if women weren't such fools, one
+might consider the matter; but they are infernal fools."
+
+The Pole nods again and smiles; being a Pole, he doesn't understand
+what the word fool means.
+
+"I have been married very happily, ugh!"
+
+"And then there is the noise of the children, and children's clothes
+always drying near the stove; and servants, and all day long the smells
+from the kitchen. No, thank you! And, perhaps, sleepless nights into the
+bargain."
+
+"Ugh!" added the Pole, completing the sentence.
+
+"Mr. Potocki says 'ugh' with the malice of the bachelor who listens to
+the complaints of the married man," remarked the bookseller.
+
+"What did I say?" asks the astonished widower. "Ugh!" says the
+bookseller, mimicking him, and the conversation degenerates into a
+universal grinning and a cloud of tobacco smoke.
+
+It is midnight. The piano upstairs, which has accompanied a mixed
+choir of male and female voices, is silent. The waiter has finished
+his countless journeys from the speaking tube to the verandah; the
+proprietor enters into his daybook the last few bottles of champagne
+which have been ordered upstairs. The three friends rise from their
+chairs and go home, two to their "virgin couches," and the bookseller
+to his Stafva.
+
+When schoolmaster Blom had reached his twentieth year, he was compelled
+to interrupt his studies at Upsala and accept a post as assistant teacher
+at Stockholm. As he, in addition, gave private lessons, he made quite a
+good income. He did not ask much of life. All he wanted was peace and
+cleanliness. An elderly lady let him a furnished room and there he found
+more than a bachelor finds as a rule. She looked after him and was kind
+to him; she gave him all the tenderness which nature had intended her to
+bestow on the new generation that was to spring from her. She mended his
+clothes and looked after him generally. He had lost his mother when he
+was a little boy and had never been accustomed to gratuitous kindness;
+therefore he was inclined to look upon her services as an interference
+with his liberty, but he accepted them nevertheless. But all the same
+the public house was his real home. There he paid for everything and
+ran up no bills.
+
+He was born in a small town in the interior of Sweden; consequently he
+was a stranger in Stockholm. He knew nobody; was not on visiting terms
+with any of the families and met his acquaintances nowhere but at the
+public-house. He talked to them freely, but never gave them his
+confidence, in fact he had no confidence to give. At school he taught
+the third class and this gave him a feeling of having been stunted in
+his growth. A very long time ago he had been in the third class
+himself, had gradually crept up to the seventh, and had spent a few
+terms at the University; now he had returned to the third; he had been
+there for twelve years without being moved. He taught the second and
+third books of Euclid; this was the course of instruction for the
+whole year. He saw only a fragment of life; a fragment without
+beginning or end; the second and third books. In his spare time he
+read the newspapers and books on archaeology. Archaeology is a modern
+science, one might almost say a disease of the time. And there is
+danger in it, for it proves over and over again that human folly has
+pretty nearly always been the same.
+
+Politics was to him nothing but an interesting game of chess--played
+for the king, for he was brought up like everybody else; it was an
+article of faith with him that nothing which happened in the world,
+concerned him, personally; let those look to it whom God had placed in
+a position of power. This way of looking at things filled his soul
+with peace and tranquillity; he troubled nobody and nothing troubled
+him. When he found, as he did occasionally, that an unusually foolish
+event had occurred, he consoled himself with the conviction that it
+could not have been helped. His education had made him selfish, and
+the catechism had taught him that if everybody did his duty, all
+things would be well, whatever happened. He did his duty towards his
+pupils in an exemplary fashion; he was never late; never ill. In his
+private life, too, he was above reproach; he paid his rent on the day
+it fell due, never ran up bills at his restaurant, and spent only one
+evening a week on pleasure. His life glided along like a railway train
+ to the second and, being a clever man, he managed to avoid collisions.
+He gave no thought to the future; a truly selfish man never does, for
+the simple reason that the future belongs to him for no longer than
+twenty or thirty years at the most.
+
+And thus his days passed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Midsummer morning dawned--radiant and sunny as mid-summer morning
+should be. The schoolmaster was still in bed, reading a book on the
+Art of Warfare in ancient Egypt, when Miss Augusta came into his room
+with his breakfast. She had put on his tray some slices of saffron
+bread, in honour of the festival, and on his dinner-napkin lay a spray
+of elder blossoms. On the previous night she had decorated his room
+with branches of the birch-tree, put clean sand and some cowslips in
+the spittoon, and a bunch of lilies-of-the-valley on the dressing
+table.
+
+"Aren't you going to make an excursion to-day, sir?" she asked, glancing
+at the decorations, anxious for a word of thanks or approval.
+
+But Mr. Blom had not even noticed the decorations, and therefore he
+answered dryly:
+
+"Haven't you realised yet that I never make excursions? I hate elbowing
+my way through a crowd, and the noise of the children gets on my nerves."
+
+"But surely you won't stay in town on such a lovely day! You'll at least
+go to the Deer Park?"
+
+"That would be the very last place I should go to, especially to-day,
+when it will be crowded. Oh! no, I'm better off in town, and I wish to
+goodness that this holiday nuisance would be stopped."
+
+"There are plenty of people who say that there aren't half enough
+holidays these days when everybody has to work so hard," said the old
+woman in a conciliatory tone. "But is there anything else you wish,
+sir? My sister and I are making an excursion by steamer, and we shan't
+be back until ten o'clock to-night."
+
+"I hope you'll enjoy yourselves, Miss Augusta. I want nothing, and am
+quite able to look after myself. The caretaker can do my room when I
+have gone out."
+
+Miss Augusta left him alone with his breakfast. When he had eaten it,
+he lit a cigar and remained in bed with his _Egyptian Warfare_. The
+open window shook softly in the southern breeze. At eight o'clock the
+bells, large and small, of the nearest church began to ring, and those
+of the other churches of Stockholm, St. Catherine's, St. Mary's and
+St. Jacob's, joined in; they tinkled and jingled, enough to make a
+heathen tear his hair in despair. When the church bells stopped, a
+military band on the bridge of a steamer began to play a set of
+quadrilles from _The Weak Point_. The schoolmaster writhed between his
+sheets, and would have got out of bed and shut the window if it had
+not been so hot. Next there came a rolling of drums, which was
+interrupted by the strains of a brass quintet which played, on another
+steamer, the Hunter's Chorus from the _Freischuetz_. But the cursed
+rolling of drums approached. They were marching at the head of the
+Riflemen on their way to camp. Now he was subjected to a medley of
+sounds: the Riflemen's march, the signals, the bells and the brass
+bands on the steamers, until at last the whole crash and din was
+drowned by the throbbing of the screw.
+
+At ten o'clock he lit his spirit lamp and boiled his shaving water.
+His starched shirt lay on his chest of drawers, white and stiff as a
+board. It took him a quarter of an hour to push the studs through the
+button-holes. He spent half-an-hour in shaving himself. He brushed his
+hair as if it were a matter of the utmost importance. When he put on
+his trousers, he was careful that the lower ends should not touch the
+floor and become dusty.
+
+His room was simply furnished, extremely plain and tidy. It was
+impersonal, neutral, like the room in a hotel. And yet he had spent in
+it twelve years of his life. Most people collect no end of trifles
+during such a period; presents, little superfluous nothings, ornaments.
+Not a single engraving, not a supplement to an illustrated magazine
+even, which at some time or other had appealed to him, hung on the walls;
+no antimacassar, no rug worked by a loving sister, lay on the chairs;
+no photograph of a beloved face stood on his writing-table, no
+embroidered pen-wiper lay by the side of the ink-stand. Everything had
+been bought as cheaply as possible with a view to avoiding unnecessary
+expense which might have hampered the owner's independence.
+
+He leaned out of the window which gave him a view of the street and,
+across Artillery Place, of the harbour. In the house opposite a woman
+was dressing. He turned away as if something ugly had met his gaze, or
+something which might disturb his peace of mind. The harbour was gay
+with the fluttering flags on the steamers and sailing-ships, and the
+water glittered in the sunshine. A few old women, prayer-book in hand,
+passed his window on their way to church. A sentinel with drawn sword
+was walking up and down before the Artillery Barracks, glancing
+discontentedly at the clock on the tower every now and then to see how
+much longer he would have to wait until the relieving guard arrived.
+Otherwise the street lay empty and grey in the hot sunshine. His eyes
+wandered back to the woman opposite. She was standing before her
+looking-glass, powder puff in hand, intent on powdering the corners of
+her nose, with a grimace which made her look like a monkey. He left the
+window and sat down in his rocking chair.
+
+He made his programme for the day, for he had a vague dread of
+solitude. On week days he was surrounded by the school-boys, and
+although he had no love for those wild beasts whose taming, or rather
+whose efficient acquisition of the difficult art of dissembling, was
+his life task, yet he felt a certain void when he was not with them.
+Now, during the long summer vacations, he had established a holiday
+school, but even so he had been compelled to give the boys short summer
+holidays, and, with the exception of meal times when he could always
+count on the bookseller and the second violin, he had been alone for
+several days.
+
+"At two o'clock," he mused, "when the guard has been relieved, and the
+crowds have dispersed, I'll go to my restaurant to dine; then I'll
+invite the bookseller to Stroemsborg; there won't be a soul to-day; we
+can have coffee there and punch, and stay till the evening when we'll
+return to town and to Rejner's." (Rejner's was the name of his
+restaurant in Berzelius Place.)
+
+Punctually at two o'clock he took his hat, brushed himself carefully
+and went out.
+
+"I wonder whether there'll be stewed perch to-day," he thought. "And
+mightn't one treat oneself to asparagus, as it's midsummer-day?"
+
+He strolled past the high wall of the Government Bakery. In Berzelius
+Park the seats which were usually occupied by the nursemaids of the
+rich and their charges, were crowded with the families of the
+labourers who had appeared in great numbers with their perambulators.
+He saw a mother feeding her baby. She was a large, full-breasted
+woman, and the baby's dimpled hand almost disappeared in her bosom.
+The schoolmaster turned away with a feeling of loathing. He was
+annoyed to see these strangers in _his_ park. It was very much like
+the servants using the drawing-room when their master and mistress had
+gone out; moreover, he couldn't forgive them their plainness.
+
+He arrived at the glass verandah, and put his hand on the door handle,
+thinking once more of the stewed perch "with lots of parsley," when
+his eyes fell on a notice on the door. There was no necessity to read
+it, he knew its purport: the restaurant was closed on midsummer-day;
+he had forgotten it. He felt as if he had run with his head into a
+lamp-post. He was furious; first of all with the proprietor for
+closing, then with himself for having forgotten that the restaurant
+would be closed. It seemed to him so monstrous that he could have
+forgotten an incident of such importance, that he couldn't believe it
+and racked his brain to find someone on whom he could lay the blame.
+Of course, it was the fault of the proprietor. He had run off the
+lines, come into collision. He was done. He sat down on the seat and
+almost shed tears of rage.
+
+Thump! a ball hit him right in the middle of his starched shirt front.
+Like an infuriated wasp he rose from his seat to find the criminal; a
+plain little girl's face laughed into his; a labourer in his Sunday
+clothes and straw hat appeared, took her by the hand and smilingly
+expressed a hope that the child had not hurt him; a laughing crowd of
+soldiers and servant girls stared at him. He looked round for a
+constable for he felt that his rights as a human being had been
+encroached upon. But when he saw the constable in familiar conversation
+with the child's mother, he dropped the idea of making a scene, went
+straight to the nearest cab-stand, hired a cab, and told the driver
+to drive him to the bookseller's; he could not bear to be alone any
+longer.
+
+In the safe shelter of the cab he took out his handkerchief and flicked
+the dust from his shirt front.
+
+He dismissed the cab in Goten Street, for he felt sure that he would
+find his friend at home. But as he walked upstairs his assurance left
+him. Supposing he were out after all!
+
+He was out. Not one of the tenants was at home. His knock sounded
+through an empty house; his footsteps re-echoed on the deserted
+stairs.
+
+When he was again in the street he was at a loss to know what to do.
+He did not know Potocki's address, and where was he to find an address
+book on a day when all the shops were closed?
+
+Without knowing where he was going, he went down the street, past the
+harbour, across the bridge. He did not meet a single man he knew. The
+presence of the crowd which occupied the town during the absence of
+their betters annoyed him, for, like the rest of us, the education
+which he had received at school had made an aristocrat of him.
+
+In his first anger he had forgotten his hunger, but now it re-asserted
+itself. A new, terrible thought occurred to him, a thought which up to
+now he had put away from him out of sheer cowardice: Where was he to
+dine? He had started out with plenty of vouchers in his pocket, but
+only one crown and fifty oere in coin. The vouchers were only used at
+Rejner's, for convenience sake, and he had spent a crown on his
+cabfare.
+
+He found himself again in Berzelius Park. Everywhere he met labourers
+and their families, eating what they had brought with them in baskets;
+hard-boiled eggs, crabs, pancakes. And the police did not interfere.
+On the contrary, he saw a policeman with a sandwich in one hand and a
+glass of beer in the other. But what irritated him more than anything
+else was the fact that these people whom he despised had the advantage
+of him. But why couldn't he go into a dairy and appease his hunger?
+Yes, why not? The very thought of it made him shudder.
+
+After some little reflection he went down to the harbour, intending to
+cross over to the Deer Park. He was bound to find acquaintances there
+from whom he could borrow money (hateful thought!) for his dinner. And
+if so, he would dine at "Hazelmount," the best restaurant.
+
+The steamer was so crowded that schoolmaster Blom had to stand close
+to the engine; the heat at his back was intolerable; his morning coat
+was being covered with grease spots, while he stood, with his gaze
+rivetted on the untidy head of a servant girl and endured the rancid
+smell of the hair-oil. But he did not see a single face he knew.
+
+When he entered the restaurant in the Deer Park, he squared his
+shoulders and tried to look as distinguished as possible.
+
+The space before the restaurant was like the auditorium of a theatre
+and seemed to serve the same purpose: that is to say, it was a place
+where one met one's friends and showed off. The verandah was occupied
+by officers, blue in the face with eating and drinking; with them were
+representatives of the foreign Powers, grown old and grey in their
+strenuous efforts to protect fellow-countrymen who had got mixed up
+with sailors and fishermen in drunken brawls, or assist at Gala
+performances, christenings, weddings and funerals. So much for the
+aristocracy. In the centre of a large space Mr. Blom suddenly discovered
+the chimney sweep of his quarter, the proprietor of a small inn, the
+chemist's assistant and others of the same standing. He watched the
+game-keeper in his green coat and silver lace, with his gilt staff,
+walking up and down and casting contemptuous glances at the assembled
+crowd, as if he were wondering why they were here? The schoolmaster felt
+self-conscious under the stare of all those eyes which seemed to say:
+"Look at him! there he goes, wondering how to get dinner!" But there was
+nothing else for it. He went on to the verandah where the people sat
+eating perch and asparagus, and drinking Sauternes and Champagne.
+
+All of a sudden he felt the pressure of a friendly hand on his shoulder,
+and as he turned round, he found himself face to face with Gustav, the
+waiter, who seized his hand and exclaimed with undisguised pleasure:
+
+"Is that really you, Mr. Blom? How are you?"
+
+But Gustav, the waiter, who was so pleased to find himself for a few
+moments the equal of his master, held a piece of wood in his warm hand
+and met a pair of eyes which pierced his soul like gimlets. And yet
+this same hand had given him ten crowns only yesterday, and the owner
+of it had thanked him for six months' service and attention in the way
+one thanks a friend. The waiter went back to his companions and sat
+down amongst them, embarrassed and snubbed. But Mr. Blom left the
+verandah with bitter thoughts and pushed his way through the crowd; he
+fancied that he could hear a mocking: "He hasn't been able to get
+dinner, after all!"
+
+He came to a large open space. There was a puppet-show, and Jasper was
+being beaten by his wife. A little further off a sailor was showing
+servant girls, soldiers and apprentices their future husband or wife
+in a wheel of fortune. They all had had dinner and were enjoying
+themselves; for a moment he believed himself their inferior, but only
+for a moment; then he remembered that they had not the vaguest idea of
+how an Egyptian camp was fortified. The thought gave him back his
+self-respect, and he wondered how it was possible that people could be
+so degraded as to find pleasure in such childishness.
+
+In the meantime he had lost all inclination to try the other restaurants;
+he passed the Tivoli and went further into the heart of the park. Young
+men and women were dancing on the grass to the strains of a violin: a
+little further off a whole family was camping under an old oak; the head
+of the family was kneeling down, in his shirt sleeves, with bare head, a
+glass of beer in one hand, a sandwich in the other; his fat, jolly,
+clean-shaven face beamed with pleasure and good-nature as he invited his
+guests, who were evidently his wife, parents-in-law, brothers,
+shop-assistants and servants, to eat, drink and be merry, for to-day was
+Midsummer day, all day long. And the jovial fellow made such droll remarks
+that the whole party writhed on the grass with amusement. After the
+pancake had been produced and eaten with the fingers, and the port bottle
+been round, the senior shop-assistant made a speech which was at once so
+moving and so witty that the ladies at one moment pressed their
+handkerchiefs to their eyes, while the head of the family bit his lips,
+and at the next interrupted the speaker with loud laughter and cheers.
+
+The schoolmaster's mood became more and more morose, but instead of
+going away he sat down on a stone under a pinetree and watched "the
+animals."
+
+When the speech was finished and father and mother had been toasted
+with cheers and a flourish of trumpets, executed on a concertina,
+accompanied by the rattling of all cups and saucers that happened to
+be empty, the party rose to play "Third Man," while mother and
+mother-in-law attended to the babies.
+
+"Just like the beasts in the field," thought the schoolmaster, turning
+away, for all that was natural was ugly in his eyes, and only that
+which was unnatural could lay any claim to beauty in his opinion,
+except, of course, the paintings of "well-known" masters in the
+National Museum.
+
+He watched the young men taking off their coats, the young girls
+slipping off their cuffs and hanging them on the blackthorn bushes;
+then they took up their positions and the game began.
+
+The girls picked up their skirts and threw up their legs so that their
+garters, made of blue and red braid such as the grocers sell for tying
+up pots, were plainly visible, and whenever the cavalier caught his
+lady, he took her in his arms and swung her round so that her skirts
+flew; and young and old shrieked so with laughter that the park
+re-echoed.
+
+"Is this innocence or corruption?" wondered the schoolmaster.
+
+But evidently the party did not know what the learned word "corruption"
+meant, and that was the reason why they were so merry.
+
+By the time they were tired of playing "Third Man" tea was ready. The
+schoolmaster was puzzled to know where the cavaliers had learnt their
+fine manners, for they moved about on all fours to offer the girls
+sugar and cake; and the straps of their waistcoats stood out like
+handles.
+
+"The males showing off before the females!" thought the schoolmaster.
+"They don't know what they are in for."
+
+He noticed how the head of the family, the jolly fellow, waited on
+father and mother-in-law, wife, shop-assistants and servant girls: and
+whenever one of them begged him to help himself first, he invariably
+answered that there was plenty of time for that.
+
+He watched the father-in-law peeling a willow branch to make a flute
+for the little boy; he watched the mother-in-law wash up as if she had
+been one of the servants. And he thought that there was something
+strange about selfishness, since it could be so cleverly disguised
+that it looked as if no one gave more than he received; for it must be
+selfishness, it couldn't be anything else.
+
+They played at forfeits and redeemed every forfeit with kisses, true,
+genuine, resounding kisses on the lips; and when the jolly book-keeper
+was made to kiss the old oak-tree, his conduct was too absurd for
+anything; he embraced and caressed the gnarled trunk as if it had been
+a girl whom he had met secretly; everybody shouted with laughter, for
+all knew how to do it, although none of them would have liked to be
+caught doing it.
+
+The schoolmaster who had begun by watching the spectacle with critical
+eyes, fell more and more under the spell of it; he almost believed
+himself to be one of the party. He smiled at the sallies of the
+shop-assistants, and before an hour was gone the head of the family
+had won his whole sympathy. No one could deny that the man was a
+comedian of the first rank. He could play "Skin-the-cat"; he could
+"walk backwards," "lie" on the tree-trunks, swallow coins, eat fire,
+and imitate all sorts of birds. And when he extracted a saffron cake
+from the dress of one of the girls and made it disappear in his right
+ear, the schoolmaster laughed until his empty inside ached.
+
+Then the dancing began. The schoolmaster had read in Rabe's grammar:
+Nemo saltat sobrius, nisi forte insanit, and had always looked upon
+dancing as a species of insanity. True, he had watched puppies and
+calves dancing when they felt frisky, but he did not believe that
+Cicero's maxim applied to the animal world, and he was in the habit of
+drawing a sharp line between men and animals. Now, as he sat watching
+these young people who were quite sober, and neither hungry nor thirsty,
+moving round and round to the slow measures of the concertina, he felt
+as if his soul were in a swing which was being kept going by his eyes
+and ears, and his right foot beat time gently on the springy turf.
+
+He spent three hours musing and watching, then he rose. He found it
+almost difficult to tear himself away; it was just as if he were
+leaving a merry party to which he had been invited; but his mood had
+changed; he felt more reconciled. He was at peace with the world and
+pleasantly tired, as if he had been enjoying himself.
+
+It was evening. Smart carriages passed him, the lady-occupants lolling
+on the back seats and looking in their long, white theatre wraps like
+corpses in their shrouds; it was fashionable then to look as if one
+had been exhumed. The schoolmaster, whose thoughts were running in
+another direction, was sure that the ladies must be bored to death and
+felt no trace of envy. Below the dusty highroad, far out on the sea,
+the steamers with their flags and brass bands were returning from
+their pleasure trips; cheers, strains of music and snatches of song
+were wafted by the sea breezes to the mountains and the Deer Park.
+
+The schoolmaster had never felt so lonely in his life as he did this
+evening in the moving throng. He fancied that everybody was looking at
+him compassionately as he made his solitary way through the crowd, and
+almost gave way to self-pity. He would have liked to talk to the first
+comer, for the mere pleasure of hearing his voice, for in his loneliness
+he felt as if he were walking by the side of a stranger. And now his
+conscience smote him. He remembered the waiter Gustav, who had been
+unable to hide his pleasure at meeting him. Now he had arrived at a
+point when he would have given worlds if anybody had met him and shown
+any pleasure at the fact. But nobody came.
+
+Yes, somebody did, after all. As he was sitting by himself on the
+steamer, a setter, who had lost his master, came to him and put its
+head on his knee. The schoolmaster was not particularly fond of dogs,
+but he allowed it to stay; he felt it pressing its soft warm body
+against his leg, he saw the eyes of the forsaken brute looking at him
+in dumb appeal, as if it were asking him to find its master.
+
+But as soon as they landed, the setter ran away. "It needed me no
+longer," thought the schoolmaster, and he walked home and went to bed.
+
+These trifling incidents of Midsummer day had robbed the schoolmaster
+of his assurance. They taught him that all foresight, all precautions,
+all the clever calculations in the world availed nothing. He felt a
+certain instability in his surroundings. Even the public house, his
+home, was not to be counted on. It might be closed any day. Moreover,
+a certain reserve on the part of Gustav troubled him. The waiter was
+as civil as before, more attentive even, but his friendship was gone;
+he had lost confidence. It afforded the schoolmaster food for thought,
+and whenever a tough piece of meat, or too small a dish of potatoes
+was set before him he thought:
+
+"Haha! He's paying me out!"
+
+It was a bad summer for the schoolmaster: the second violin was out of
+town and the book-seller frequented "Mosesheight," a garden restaurant
+in his own district, situated on a hill.
+
+On an evening in autumn the bookseller and the second violin were
+sitting at their favourite table, drinking a glass of punch, when
+the schoolmaster entered, carrying under his arm a parcel which he
+carefully hid in an empty hamper in a cupboard used for all sorts of
+lumber. He was ill-tempered and unusually irritable.
+
+"Well, old boy," the bookseller began for the hundredth time, "and
+when are you going to be married?"
+
+"Confound your 'when are you going to be married!' As if a man hadn't
+enough trouble without it! Why don't you get married yourself?"
+growled the schoolmaster.
+
+"Oh! because I have my old Stafva," answered the bookseller, who always
+had a number of stereotyped answers in readiness.
+
+"I was married very happily," said the Pole, "but my wife is dead,
+now, ugh!"
+
+"Is she?" mimicked the schoolmaster; "and the gentleman is a widower?
+How am I to reconcile these facts?"
+
+The Pole nodded, for he did not in the least understand what the
+schoolmaster was driving at.
+
+The latter felt bored by his friends; their topic of conversation was
+always the same; he knew their replies by heart.
+
+Presently he went into the corridor for a few moments to fetch his
+cigar-case which he had left in the pocket of his overcoat. The
+bookseller instantly raided the cupboard and returned with the
+mysterious parcel. As it was not sealed, he opened it quickly; it
+contained a beautiful American sleeping-suit; he hung it carefully
+over the back of the schoolmaster's chair.
+
+"Ugh!" said the Pole, grinning, as if he were looking at something
+unsightly.
+
+The proprietor of the restaurant who loved a practical joke, bent over
+the counter, laughing loudly; the waiter stood rooted to the spot, and
+one of the cooks peeped through the door which communicated with the
+kitchen.
+
+When the schoolmaster came back and realised the trick played on him,
+he grew pale with anger; he immediately suspected the bookseller; but
+when his eyes fell on Gustav who was standing in a corner of the room,
+laughing, his old obsession returned to him: "He's paying me out!"
+Without a word he seized his property, threw a few coins on the
+counter and left the restaurant.
+
+Henceforth the schoolmaster avoided Rejner's. The bookseller had heard
+that he dined at a restaurant in his own district. This was true. But
+he was very discontented! The food was not actually bad, but it was
+not cooked to his liking. The waiters were not attentive. He often
+thought of returning to Rejner's, but his pride would not let him. He
+had been turned out of his home; in five minutes a bond of many years'
+standing had been severed.
+
+A short time after fate struck him a fresh blow. Miss Augusta had
+inherited a little fortune in the provinces and had decided to leave
+Stockholm on the first of October. The schoolmaster had to look out
+for new lodgings.
+
+But he had been spoilt, and there was no pleasing him. He changed his
+room every month. There was nothing wrong with the rooms, but they
+were not like his old room. It had become such a habit with him to
+walk through certain streets, that he often found himself before his
+old front door before he realised his mistake. He was like a lost
+child.
+
+Eventually he went to live in a boarding house, a solution which he
+had always loathed and dreaded. And then his friends lost sight of him
+altogether.
+
+One evening, as the Pole was sitting alone over his grog, smoking,
+drinking, and nodding with the capacity of the oriental to lapse into
+complete stupor, the bookseller burst in on him like a thunderstorm,
+flung his hat on the table, and shouted:
+
+"Confound him! Has anybody ever heard anything like it?"
+
+The Pole roused himself from his brandy-and-tobacco Nirvana, and
+rolled his eyes.
+
+"I say, confound it! Has anybody ever heard anything like it? He's
+going to be married!"
+
+"Who's going to be married?" asked the Pole, startled by the
+bookseller's violence and emphatic language.
+
+"Schoolmaster Blom!"
+
+The bookseller expected a glass of grog in exchange for his news. The
+proprietor left the counter and came to their table to listen.
+
+"Has she any money?" he asked acutely.
+
+"I don't think so," replied the bookseller, conscious of his temporary
+importance and selling his wares one by one.
+
+"Is she beautiful?" asked the Pole. "My wife was very beautiful. Ugh!"
+
+"No, she's not beautiful either," answered the bookseller, "but
+nice-looking."
+
+"Have you seen her?" enquired the proprietor. "Is she old?" His eyes
+wandered towards the kitchen door.
+
+"No, she's young!"
+
+"And her parents?" continued the proprietor.
+
+"I heard that her father was a brass founder in Orebro."
+
+"The rascal! Well, I never!" said the proprietor.
+
+"Haven't I always said so? The man is a born husband," said the
+bookseller.
+
+"We all of us are," said the proprietor, "and take my word for it, no
+one escapes his fate!"
+
+With this philosophical remark he closed the subject and returned to
+the counter.
+
+When they had settled that the schoolmaster was not marrying for money,
+they discussed the problem of "what the young people were going to live
+on." The bookseller made a guess at the schoolmaster's salary and "what
+he might earn besides by giving private lessons." When that question,
+too, had been settled, the proprietor, who had returned to the table,
+asked for details.
+
+"Where had he met her? Was she fair or dark? Was she in love with
+him?"
+
+The last question was by no means out of the way; the bookseller
+"thought she was," for he had seen them together, arm in arm, looking
+into shop windows.
+
+"But that he, who was such a stick, could fall in love! It was incredible!"
+
+"And what a husband he would make!" The proprietor knew that he was
+_devilish particular_ about his food, and that, he said, was a mistake
+when one was married.
+
+"And he likes a glass of punch in the evening, and surely a married
+man can't drink punch every evening of his life. And he doesn't like
+children! It won't turn out well," he whispered. "Take my word for it,
+it won't turn out well. And, gentlemen, there's another thing," (he
+rose from his seat, looked round and continued in a whisper), "I believe,
+I'm hanged if I don't, that the old hypocrite has had a love affair of
+some sort. Do you remember that incident, gentlemen, with
+the--hihihi--sleeping suit? He's one of those whom you don't find where
+you leave them! Take care, Mrs. Blom! Mind what you are about! I'll say
+no more!"
+
+It was certainly a fact that the schoolmaster was engaged to be
+married and that the wedding was to take place within two months.
+
+What happened after, does not belong to this story, and, moreover, it
+is difficult to know what goes on behind the convent walls of
+domesticity when the vow of silence is being kept.
+
+It was also a fact that the schoolmaster, after his marriage, was never
+again seen at a public house.
+
+The bookseller, who met him by himself in the street one evening, had
+to listen to a long exhortation on getting married. The schoolmaster
+had inveighed against all bachelors; he had called them egotists, who
+refused to do their duty by the State; in his opinion they ought to be
+heavily taxed, for all indirect taxes weighed most cruelly on the
+father of a family. He went so far as to say that he wished to see
+bachelorhood punished by the law of the land as a "crime against
+nature."
+
+The bookseller had a good memory. He said that he doubted the
+advisability of taking a _fool_ into one's house, permanently. But the
+schoolmaster replied that _his_ wife was the most intelligent woman he
+had ever met.
+
+Two years after the wedding the Pole saw the schoolmaster and his wife
+in the theatre; he thought that they looked happy; "ugh!"
+
+Another three years went by. On a Midsummer day the proprietor of the
+restaurant made a pleasure trip on the Lake of Maelar to Mariafred.
+There, before Castle Cripsholm, he saw the schoolmaster, pushing a
+perambulator over a green field, and carrying in his disengaged hand a
+basket containing food, while a whole crowd of young men and women,
+"who looked like country folk," followed in the rear. After dinner the
+schoolmaster sang songs and turned somersaults with the youngsters. He
+looked ten years younger and had all the ways of a ladies' man.
+
+The proprietor, who was quite close to the party while they were
+having dinner, overheard a little conversation between Mr. and Mrs.
+Blom. When the young wife took a dish of crabs from the basket, she
+apologised to Albert, because she had not been able to buy a single
+female crab in the whole market. Thereupon the schoolmaster put his
+arm round her, kissed her and said that it didn't matter in the least,
+because male or female crabs, it was all the same to him. And when one
+of the babies in the perambulator began to cry, the schoolmaster
+lifted it out and hushed it to sleep again.
+
+Well, all these things are mere details, but how people can get married
+and bring up a family when they have not enough for themselves while
+they are bachelors, is a riddle to me. It almost looks as if babies
+brought their food with them when they come into this world; it really
+almost does look as if they did.
+
+
+
+
+COMPENSATION
+
+
+He was considered a genius at College, and no one doubted that he
+would one day distinguish himself. But after passing his examinations,
+he was obliged to go to Stockholm and look out for a berth. His
+dissertation, which was to win him the doctor's degree, had to be
+postponed. As he was very ambitious, but had no private means, he
+resolved to marry money, and with this object in view, he visited only
+the very best families, both at Upsala where he studied for the bar, and
+later on at Stockholm. At Upsala he always fraternised with the new
+arrivals, that is to say, when they were members of aristocratic families,
+and the freshers felt flattered by the advances made by the older man.
+In this way he formed many useful ties, which meant invitations to his
+friends' country houses during the summer.
+
+The country houses were his happy hunting ground. He possessed social
+talents, he could sing and play and amuse the ladies, and consequently
+he was a great favourite. He dressed beyond his means; but he never
+borrowed money from any of his friends or aristocratic acquaintances.
+He even went to the length of buying two worthless shares and mentioning
+on every possible occasion that he had to attend a General Meeting of
+the shareholders.
+
+For two summers he had paid a great deal of attention to a titled lady
+who owned some property, and his prospects were the general topic,
+when he suddenly disappeared from high life and became engaged to a
+poor girl, the daughter of a cooper, who owned no property whatever.
+
+His friends were puzzled and could not understand how he could thus
+stand in his own light. He had laid his plans so well, he "had but to
+stretch out his hand and success was in his grasp"; he had the morsel
+firmly stuck on his fork, it was only necessary for him to open his
+mouth and swallow it. He himself was at a loss to understand how it
+was that the face of a little girl whom he had met but once on a steamer
+could have upset all his plans of many years' standing. He was bewitched,
+obsessed.
+
+He asked his friends whether they didn't think her beautiful?
+
+Frankly speaking they didn't.
+
+"But she is so clever! Just look into her eyes! What expressive eyes
+she has!"
+
+His friends could see nothing and hear less, for the girl never opened
+her lips.
+
+But he spent evening after evening with the cooper's family; to be
+sure, the cooper was a very intelligent man! On his knees before her
+(a trick often practised at the country houses) he held her skeins of
+wool; he played and sang to her, talked about religion and the drama,
+and he always read acquiescence in her eyes. He wrote poetry about
+her, and sacrificed at her shrine his laurels, his ambitious dreams,
+even his dissertation.
+
+And then he married her.
+
+The cooper drank too much at the wedding and made an improper speech
+about girls in general. But the son-in-law found the old man so
+unsophisticated, so amiable, that he egged him on instead of shutting
+him up. He felt at his ease among these simple folk; in their midst he
+could be quite himself.
+
+"That's being in love," said his friends. "Love is a wonderful thing."
+
+And now they were married. One month--two months. He was unspeakably
+happy. Every evening they spent together and he sang a song to her
+about the Rose in the Wood, her favourite song. And he talked about
+religion and the drama, and she sat and listened eagerly. But she never
+expressed an opinion; she listened in silence and went on with her
+crochet work.
+
+In the third month he relapsed into his old habit of taking an afternoon
+nap. His wife, who hated being by herself, insisted on sitting by him.
+It irritated him, for he felt an overwhelming need to be alone with his
+thoughts.
+
+Sometimes she met him on his way home from his office, and her heart
+swelled with pride when he left his colleagues and crossed the street
+to join her. She took him home in triumph: he was _her_ husband!
+
+In the fourth month he grew tired of her favourite song. It was stale
+now! He took up a book and read, and neither of them spoke.
+
+One evening he had to attend a meeting which was followed by a banquet.
+It was his first night away from home. He had persuaded his wife to
+invite a friend to spend the evening with her, and to go to bed early,
+for he did not expect to be home until late.
+
+The friend came and stayed until nine o'clock. The young wife sat in
+the drawing-room, waiting, for she was determined not to go to bed
+until her husband had returned. She felt too restless to go to sleep.
+
+She sat alone in the drawing-room. What could she do to make the time
+pass more quickly? The maid had gone to bed; the grandfather's clock
+ticked and ticked. But it was only ten o'clock when she put away her
+crochet work. She fidgeted, moved the furniture about and felt a little
+unstrung.
+
+So that was what being married meant! One was torn from one's early
+surroundings, and shut up in three solitary rooms to wait until one's
+husband came home, half intoxicated.--Nonsense! he loved her, and he
+was out on business. She was a fool to forget that. But _did_ he love
+her still? Hadn't he refused a day or two ago to hold a skein of wool
+for her?--a thing he loved to do before they were married. Didn't he
+look rather annoyed yesterday when she met him before lunch? And--after
+all--if he had to attend a business meeting to-night, there was no
+necessity for him to be present at the banquet.
+
+It was half-past ten when her musing had reached this point. She was
+surprised that she hadn't thought of these things before. She relapsed
+into her dark mood and the dismal thoughts again passed through her
+mind, one by one. But now reinforcements had arrived. He never talked
+to her now! He never sang to her, never opened the piano! He had told
+her a lie when he had said that he couldn't do without his afternoon
+nap, for he was reading French novels all the time.
+
+He had told her a lie!
+
+It was only half-past eleven. The silence was oppressive. She opened
+the window and looked out into the street. Two men were standing down
+below, bargaining with two women. That was men's way! If he should
+ever do anything like that! She should drown herself if he did.
+
+She shut the window and lighted the chandelier in the bedroom. "One
+ought to be able to see what one is about," he had once said to her on
+a certain occasion.--Everything was still so bright and new! The green
+coverlet looked like a mown lawn, and the little pillows reminded her
+of two white kittens curled up on the grass. The polish of her
+dressing-table reflected the light: the mirror had as yet none of
+those ugly stains which are made by the splashing of water. The silver
+on the back of her hair-brush, her powder-box, her tooth-brush, all
+shone and sparkled. Her bedroom slippers were still so new and pretty
+that it was impossible to picture them down-at-heel. Everything looked
+new, and yet everything seemed to have lost some of its freshness. She
+knew all his songs, all his drawing-room pieces, all his words, all
+his thoughts. She knew before-hand what he would say when he sat down
+to lunch, what he would talk about when they were alone in the
+evening.
+
+She was sick of it all. Had she been in love with him? Oh, yes!
+Certainly! But was this all then? Was she realising all the dreams of
+her girlhood? Were things to go on like this until she died? Yes!
+But--but--but--surely they would have children! though there was no
+sign of it as yet. Then she would no longer be alone! Then he might go
+out as often as he liked, for she would always have somebody to talk
+to, to play with. Perhaps it was a baby which she wanted to make her
+happy. Perhaps matrimony really meant something more than being a
+man's legitimate mistress. That must be it! But then, he would have to
+love her, and he didn't do that. And she began to cry.
+
+When her husband came home at one o'clock, he was quite sober. But he
+was almost angry with her when he found her still up.
+
+"Why didn't you go to bed?" were the words with which he greeted her.
+
+"How can I go to sleep when I am waiting for you?"
+
+"A fine look out for me! Am I never to go out then? I believe you have
+been crying, too?"
+
+"Yes, I have, and how can I help it if you--don't--love--me--any--more?"
+
+"Do you mean to say I don't love you because I had to go out on
+business?"
+
+"A banquet isn't business!"
+
+"Good God! Am I not to be allowed to go out? How can women be so
+obtrusive?"
+
+"Obtrusive? Yes, I noticed that yesterday, when I met you. I'll never
+meet you again."
+
+"But, darling, I was with my chief--"
+
+"Huhuhu!"
+
+She burst into tears, her body moved convulsively.
+
+He had to call the maid and ask her to fetch the hot-water bottle.
+
+He, too, was weeping. Scalding tears! He wept over himself, his hardness
+of heart, his wickedness, his illusions over everything.
+
+Surely his love for her wasn't an illusion? He did love her! Didn't
+he? And she said she loved him, too, as he was kneeling before her
+prostrate figure, kissing her eyes. Yes, they loved one another! It
+was merely a dark cloud which had passed, now. Ugly thoughts, born of
+solitude and loneliness. She would never, never again stay alone. They
+fell asleep in each other's arms, her face dimpled with smiles.
+
+But she did not go to meet him on the following day. He asked no
+questions at lunch. He talked a lot, but more for the sake of talking
+than to amuse her; it seemed as if he were talking to himself.
+
+In the evening he entertained her with long descriptions of the life
+at Castle Sjoestaholm; he mimicked the young ladies talking to the
+Baron, and told her the names of the Count's horses. And on the
+following day he mentioned his dissertation.
+
+One afternoon he came home very tired. She was sitting in the
+drawing-room, waiting for him. Her ball of cotton had fallen on the
+floor. In passing, his foot got entangled in the cotton; at his next
+step he pulled her crochet work out of her hand and dragged it along;
+then he lost his temper and kicked it aside.
+
+She exclaimed at his rudeness.
+
+He retorted that he had no time to bother about her rubbish, and
+advised her to spend her time more profitably. He had to think of his
+dissertation, if he was to have a career at all. And she ought to
+consider the question of how to limit their household expenses.
+
+Things had gone far indeed!
+
+On the next day the young wife, her eyes swollen with weeping, was
+knitting socks for her husband. He told her he could buy them cheaper
+ready-made. She burst into tears. What was she to do? The maid did all
+the work of the house, there was not enough work in the kitchen for
+two. She always dusted the rooms. Did he want her to send the maid
+away?
+
+"No, no!"
+
+"What did he want, then?"
+
+He didn't know himself, but he was sure that something was wrong. Their
+expenses were too high. That was all. They couldn't go on living at their
+present rate, and then--somehow he could never find time to work at his
+dissertation.
+
+Tears, kisses, and a grand reconciliation! But now he started staying
+away from home in the evening several times a week. Business! A man
+must show himself! If he stays at home, he will be overlooked and
+forgotten!
+
+A year had passed; there were no signs of the arrival of a baby. "How
+like a little liaison I once had in the old days," he thought; "there
+is only one difference: this one is duller and costs more." There was
+no more conversation, now; they merely talked of household matters.
+"She has no brain," he thought. "I am listening to myself when I am
+talking to her, and the apparent depths of her eyes is a delusion, due
+to the size of her pupils--the unusual size of her pupils.--"
+
+He talked openly about his former love for her as of something that
+was over and done with. And yet, whenever he did so, he felt a pain
+in his heart, an irritating, cruel pain, a remorseless pain that could
+never die.
+
+"Everything on earth withers and dies," he mused, "why should her
+favourite song alone be an exception to this? When one has heard it
+three hundred and sixty-five times, it becomes stale; it can't be
+helped. But is my wife right when she says that our love, also, has
+died? No, and yet--perhaps she is. Our marriage is no better than a
+vulgar liaison, for we have no child."
+
+One day he made up his mind to talk the matter over with a married
+friend, for were they not both members of the "Order of the Married"?
+
+"How long have you been married?"
+
+"Six years."
+
+"And does matrimony bore you?"
+
+"At first it did; but when the children came, matters improved."
+
+"Was that so? It's strange that we have no child."
+
+"Not your fault, old man! Tell your wife to go and see a doctor about
+it."
+
+He had an intimate conversation with her and she went.
+
+Six weeks after what a change!
+
+What a bustle and commotion in the house! The drawing-room table was
+littered with baby-clothes which were quickly hidden if anybody entered
+unexpectedly, and reappeared as quickly if it was only he who had come
+in. A name had to be thought of. It would surely be a boy. The midwife
+had to be interviewed, medical books had to be bought, and a cradle
+and a baby's outfit.
+
+The baby arrived and it really was a boy! And when he saw the "little
+monkey that smelled of butter" clasped to her bosom, which until then
+had but been his plaything, he reverently discovered the mother in his
+little wife; and "when he saw the big pupils looking at the baby so
+intently that they seemed to be looking into the future", he realised
+that there were depths in her eyes after all; depths more profound
+than he could fathom for all his drama and religion. And now all his
+old love, his dear old love, burst into fresh flames, and there was
+something new added to it, which he had dimly divined, but never
+realised.
+
+How beautiful she was when she busied herself about the house again!
+And how intelligent in all matters concerning the baby!
+
+As for him, he felt a man. Instead of talking of the Baron's horses
+and the Count's cricket matches, he now talked, too much almost, of
+his son.
+
+And when occasionally he was obliged to be out of an evening, he always
+longed for his own fireside; not because his wife sat there waiting for
+him, like an evil conscience, but because he knew that she was not alone.
+And when he came home, both mother and child were asleep. He was almost
+jealous of the baby, for there had been a certain charm in the thought
+that while he was out, somebody was sitting alone at home, eagerly
+awaiting his return.
+
+Now he was allowed his afternoon nap. And as soon as he had gone back
+to town, the piano was opened and the favourite song of the _Rose in
+the Wood_ was sung, for it was quite new to Harold, and had regained
+all its freshness for poor little Laura who hadn't heard it for so many
+days.
+
+She had no time now for crochet work, but there were plenty of
+antimacassars in the house. He, on his part, could not spare the time
+for his dissertation.
+
+"Harold shall write it," said the father, for he knew now that his
+life would not be over when he came to die.
+
+Many an evening they sat together, as before, and gossiped, but now
+both took a share in the conversation, for now she understood what
+they were talking about.
+
+She confessed that she was a silly girl who knew nothing about religion
+and the drama; but she said that she had always told him so, and that he
+had refused to believe it.
+
+But now he believed it less than ever.
+
+They sang the old favourite song, and Harold crowed, they danced to the
+tune and rocked the baby's cradle to it, and the song always retained
+its freshness and charm.
+
+
+
+
+FRICTIONS
+
+
+His eyes had been opened. He realised the perversity of the world, but
+he lacked the power to penetrate the darkness and discover the cause
+of this perversity; therefore he gave himself up to despair, a
+disillusioned man. Then he fell in love with a girl who married
+somebody else. He complained of her conduct to his friends, male and
+female, but they only laughed at him. For a little while longer he trod
+his solitary path alone and misunderstood. He belonged to "society,"
+and joined in its pursuits, because it distracted him; but at the bottom
+of his heart he had nothing but contempt for its amusements, which he
+took no pains to conceal.
+
+One evening he was present at a ball. He danced with a young woman of
+unusual beauty and animation. When the band ceased playing, he remained
+standing by her side. He knew he ought to talk to her but he did not
+know what to say. After a while the girl broke the silence.
+
+"You are fond of dancing, Baron?" she said with a cold, smile.
+
+"Oh no! not at all," he answered. "Are you?"
+
+"I can't imagine anything more foolish," she replied.
+
+He had met his man, or rather his woman.
+
+"Why do you dance, then?" he asked.
+
+"For the same reason that you do."
+
+"Can you read my mind?"
+
+"Easily enough; if two people think alike, the other always knows."
+
+"H'm! You're a strange woman! Do you believe in love?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"Nor do I! You and I ought to get married."
+
+"I'm beginning to think so myself."
+
+"Would you marry me?"
+
+"Why not? At any rate, we shouldn't fight."
+
+"Horrible idea! But how can you be so sure?"
+
+"Because we think alike."
+
+"Yes, but that might become monotonous. We should have nothing to talk
+about, because the one would always know what the other is thinking."
+
+"True; but wouldn't it be even more monotonous if we remained
+unmarried and misunderstood?"
+
+"You are right! Would you like to think it over?"
+
+"Yes, until the cotillon."
+
+"No longer?"
+
+"Why any longer?"
+
+He took her back to the drawing-room and left her there, drank several
+glasses of champagne and watched her during supper. She allowed two
+young members of the Diplomatic Corps to wait on her, but made fun of
+them all the time and treated them as if they were footmen.
+
+As soon as the cotillon began, he went to her and offered her a bouquet.
+
+"Do you accept me?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," she replied.
+
+And so they were engaged.
+
+It's a splendid match, said the world. They are made for one another.
+They are equals as far as social position and money are concerned.
+They hold the same blase views of life. By blase the world meant that
+they cared very little for dances, theatres, bazaars, and other noble
+sports without which life is not really worth living.
+
+They were like carefully wiped twin slates, exactly alike; but utterly
+unable to surmise whether or not life would write the same legend on
+both. They never asked one another during the tender moments of their
+engagement: Do you love me? They knew quite well that it was impossible,
+because they did not believe in love. They talked little, but they
+understood one another perfectly.
+
+And they married.
+
+He was always attentive, always polite, and they were good friends.
+
+When the baby was born, it had but one effect on their relationship;
+they had something to talk about now.
+
+But by-and-by the husband began to reveal a certain energy. He had a
+sense of duty, and moreover, he was sick of being idle. He had a
+private income, but was in no way connected with politics or the
+Government. Now he looked round for some occupation which would fill
+the void in his life. He had heard the first morning call of the
+awakening spirits and felt it his duty to do his share of the great
+work of research into the causes of human misery. He read much, made a
+careful study of politics and eventually wrote an article and sent it
+to a paper. The consequence was that he was elected a member of the
+Board of Education. This necessitated hard reading in future, for all
+questions were to be threshed out thoroughly.
+
+The Baroness lay on the sofa and read Chateaubriand and Musset. She
+had no faith in the improvement of humanity, and this stirring up of
+the dust and mould which the centuries had deposited on human
+institutions irritated her. Yet she noticed that she did not keep pace
+with her husband. They were like two horses at a race. They had been
+weighed before the start and been found to be of the same weight; they
+had promised to keep side by side during the run; everything was
+calculated to make them finish the race and leave the course at the
+same time. But already the husband had gained by the length of a neck.
+Unless she hurried up, she was bound to be left behind.
+
+And the latter really happened. In the following year he was made
+controller of the budget. He was away for two months. His absence made
+the Baroness realise that she loved him; a fact which was brought home
+to her by her fear of losing him.
+
+When he returned home, she was all eagerness; but his mind was filled
+with the things he had seen and heard abroad. He realised that they
+had come to the parting of the ways, but he would have liked to delay
+it, prevent it, if possible. He showed her in great living pictures
+the functioning of the colossal gigantic machinery of the State, he
+tried to explain to her the working of the wheels, the multifarious
+transmissions, regulators and detents, unreliable pendulums and
+untrustworthy safety valves.
+
+She was interested at first, but after a while her interest waned.
+Conscious of her mental inferiority, her insignificance, she devoted
+herself entirely to her baby, anxious to demonstrate to her husband
+that she yet had a value as a model mother. But her husband did not
+appreciate this value. He had married her for the sake of companionship,
+and he found in her an excellent nurse for his child. But how could it
+be helped now? Who could have foreseen such a thing?
+
+The house was always full of members of Parliament, and politics was
+the subject of conversation at dinner. The hostess merely took care
+that no fault could be found with the cooking. The Baron never omitted
+to have one or two men amongst his guests who could talk to his wife
+about music and the drama, but the Baroness wanted to discuss nothing
+but the nursery and the bringing up of children. After dessert, as
+soon as the health of the hostess was drunk, there was a general
+stampede to the smoking-room where the political discussions were
+continued. The Baroness left her guests and went to the nursery with a
+feeling of bitterness in her heart; she realised that her husband had
+so far outdistanced her that she could never again hope to come up
+with him.
+
+He worked much at home in the evening; frequently he was busy at his
+writing-table until the small hours of the morning, but always behind
+locked doors. When he noticed afterwards, as he sometimes did, that
+his wife went about with red eyes, he felt a pain in his heart; but
+they had nothing to say to each other.
+
+Occasionally however, at those times when his work palled, when he
+realised that his inner life was growing poorer and poorer, he felt a
+void within him, a longing for warmth, for something intimate, something
+he had dreamed of long ago, in the early days of his youth. But every
+feeling of that sort he suppressed at once as unfaithfulness to his wife,
+for he had a very high conception of the duty of a husband.
+
+To bring a little more variety into her daily life, he suggested one
+day that she should invite a cousin of whom she had often spoken, but
+whom he had never seen, to spend the winter with them in town.
+
+This had always been a great wish of the Baroness's, but now that the
+realisation of it was within her power, she changed her mind. She did
+not want her in the least now. Her husband pressed her for reasons,
+but she could not give him any. It roused his curiosity and finally
+she confessed that she was afraid of her cousin; afraid that she might
+win his heart, that he might fall in love with her.
+
+"She must be a queer girl, we really must have her here!"
+
+The Baroness wept and warned, but the Baron laughed and the cousin
+arrived.
+
+One afternoon the Baron came home, tired as usual; he had forgotten
+all about the cousin and his curiosity in regard to her. They sat down
+to dinner. The Baron asked the cousin if she was fond of the theatre.
+She replied that she was not. She preferred reality to make-believe.
+At home she had founded a school for black sheep and a society for the
+care of discharged prisoners. Indeed! The Baron was much interested in
+the administration of prisons. The cousin was able to give him a good
+deal of information, and during the rest of the dinner the conversation
+was exclusively about prisons. Eventually the cousin promised to treat
+the whole question in a paper which the Baron was going to read and work
+up.
+
+What the Baroness had foreseen, happened. The Baron contracted a
+spiritual marriage with the cousin, and his wife was left out in the
+cold. But the cousin was also beautiful, and when she leaned over the
+Baron at his writing-desk, and he felt her soft arm on his shoulder
+and her warm breath against his cheek, he could not suppress a
+sensation of supreme well-being. Needless to say, their conversation
+was not always of prisons. They also discussed love. She believed in
+the love of the souls, and she stated as plainly as she could, that
+marriage without love was prostitution. The Baron had not taken much
+interest in the development of modern ideas on love, and found that
+her views on the subject were rather hard, but after all she was
+probably quite right.
+
+But the cousin possessed other qualities, too, invaluable qualifications
+for a true spiritual marriage. She had no objection to tobacco smoke for
+instance, in fact, she was very fond of a cigarette herself. There was no
+reason, therefore, why she should not go into the smoking-room with the
+men after dinner and talk about politics. And then she was charming.
+
+Tortured by little twinges of conscience, the Baron would every now
+and then disappear from the smoking-room, go into the nursery, kiss
+his wife and child, and ask her how she was getting on? The Baroness
+was grateful, but she was not happy. After these little journeys the
+Baron always returned to his friends in the best of tempers; one might
+have thought that he had faithfully performed a sacred duty. At other
+times it irritated and distressed him that his wife did not join the
+party in the smoking-room, too, as _his_ wife; this thought was a
+burden which weighed quite heavily on him.
+
+The cousin did not go home in the spring, but accompanied the couple
+to a watering-place. There she organised little performances for the
+benefit of the poor, in which she and the Baron played the parts of
+the lovers. This had the inevitable result that the fire burst into
+flames. But the flames were only spiritual flames; mutual interests,
+like views, and, perhaps, similar dispositions.
+
+The Baroness had ample time to consider her position. The day arrived
+when she told her husband that since everything was over between them,
+the only decent thing to do was to part. But that was more than he had
+bargained for; he was miserable; the cousin had better return to her
+parents, and he would prove to his wife that he was a man of honour.
+
+The cousin left. A correspondence between her and the Baron began. He
+made the Baroness read every letter, however much she hated doing it.
+After a while, however, he gave in and read the letters without showing
+them to his wife.
+
+Finally the cousin returned. Then matters came to a crisis. The Baron
+discovered that he could not live without her.
+
+What were they to do? Separate? It would be death. Go on as at present?
+Impossible! Annul the marriage which the Baron had come to look upon as
+legal prostitution and marry his beloved? However painful it might be,
+it was the only honest course to take.
+
+But that was against the wishes of the cousin. She did not want it said
+of her that she had stolen another woman's husband. And then the scandal!
+the scandal!
+
+"But it was dishonest not to tell his wife everything; it was dishonest
+to allow things to go on; one could never tell how the matter would end."
+
+"What did he mean? How could it end?"
+
+"Nobody could tell!"
+
+"Oh! How dared he! What did he think of her?"
+
+"That she was a woman!"
+
+And he fell on his knees and worshipped her; he said that he did not
+care if the administration of prisons and the school for black sheep
+went to the devil; he did not know what manner of woman she was; he
+only knew that he loved her.
+
+She replied that she had nothing but contempt for him, and went helter
+skelter to Paris. He followed at her heels. At Hamburg he wrote a
+letter to his wife in which he said that they had made a mistake and
+that it was immoral not to rectify it. He asked her to divorce him.
+
+And she divorced him.
+
+A year after these events the Baron and the cousin were married. They
+had a child. But that was a fact which did not interfere with their
+happiness. On the contrary! What a wealth of new ideas germinated in
+their minds in their voluntary exile! How strong were the winds which
+blew here!
+
+He encouraged her to write a book on "young criminals." The press tore
+it to pieces. She was furious and swore that she would never write
+another book. He asked her whether she wrote for praise, whether she
+was ambitious?--She replied by a question: Why did he write?--A little
+quarrel arose. He said it was refreshing to hear her express views
+which did not echo his own--always his own.--Always his own? What did
+he mean? Didn't she have _views of her own_? She henceforth made it
+her business to prove to him on every occasion that she was capable of
+forming her own opinions; and to prevent any errors on his part she
+took good care that they always differed from his. He told her he did
+not care what views she held as long as she loved him.--Love? What about
+it? He was no better than other men and, moreover, he had betrayed her.
+He did not love her soul, but her body.--No, he loved both, he loved
+her, every bit of her!--Oh! How deceitful he had been!--No, he had not
+been deceitful, he had merely deceived himself when he believed that he
+loved her soul only.
+
+They were tired of strolling up and down the boulevard, and sat down
+before a cafe. She lighted a cigarette. A waiter requested her rather
+uncivilly, not to smoke. The Baron demanded an explanation and the
+waiter said that the cafe was a first-class establishment and the
+management was anxious not to drive away respectable people by serving
+_these ladies_. They rose from their seats, paid and went away. The
+Baron was furious, the young Baroness had tears in her eyes.
+
+"There they had a demonstration of the power of prejudice! Smoking was
+a foolish act as far as a man was concerned, but in a woman it was a
+crime! Let him who was able to do so, destroy this prejudice! Or, let
+us say, him who would care to do so! The Baron had no wish that his
+wife should be the first victim, even if it were to win for her the
+doubtful honour of having cast aside a prejudice. For it was nothing
+else. In Russia, ladies belonging to the best society smoked at the
+dinner-table during the courses. Customs changed with the latitudes.
+And yet those trifles were not without importance, for life consisted
+of trifles. If men and women shared bad habits, intercourse between
+them would be less stiff and formal: they would make friends more
+easily and keep pace with one another. If they had the same education,
+they would have the same interests, and cling together more closely
+during the whole of their lives."
+
+The Baron was silent as if he had said something foolish. But she had
+not been listening to him; her thoughts had been far away.
+
+"She had been insulted by a waiter, told that she was not fit to
+associate with respectable people. There was more behind that, than
+appeared on the surface. She had been recognised. Yes, she was sure of
+it, it was not the first time that she had noticed it."
+
+"What had she noticed?"
+
+"That she had been treated with little respect at the restaurants. The
+people evidently did not think that they were married; because they
+were affectionate and civil to one another. She had borne it in silence
+for a long time, but now she had come to the end of her tether. And yet
+this was nothing compared to what they were saying at home!"
+
+"Well, what were they saying? And why had she never told him anything
+about it before?"
+
+"Oh! horrible things! The letters she had received! Leaving the
+anonymous ones quite out of the question.
+
+"Well, and what about him? Was he not being treated as if he were a
+criminal? And yet he had not committed a crime! He had acted according
+to all legal requirements, he had not broken his marriage vows. He had
+left the country in compliance with the dictates of the law; the Royal
+Consistory has granted his appeal for a divorce; the clergy, Holy Church,
+had given him his release from the bonds of his first marriage on stamped
+paper; therefore he had not broken them! When a country was conquered, a
+whole nation was absolved from its oath of loyalty to its monarch; why
+did society look askance at the release from a promise? Had it not
+conferred the right on the Consistory to dissolve a marriage? How could
+it dare to assume the character of a judge now and condemn its own laws?
+Society was at war with itself! He was being treated like a criminal!
+Hadn't the secretary of the Embassy, his old friend, on whom he had left
+his and his wife's cards, acknowledged them by simply returning one card
+only? And was he not overlooked at all public functions?"
+
+"Oh! She had had to put up with worse things! One of her friends in Paris
+had closed her door to her, and several had cut her in the street."
+
+"Only the wearer of a boot knew where it pinched. The boots which they
+were wearing now were real Spanish boots, and they were at war with
+society. The upper classes had cut them. The upper classes! This
+community of semi-imbeciles, who secretly lived like dogs, but showed
+one another respect as long as there was no public scandal; that was to
+say as long as one did not honestly revoke an agreement and wait until
+it had lapsed before one made use of one's newly-regained freedom! And
+these vicious upper classes were the awarders of social position and
+respect, according to a scale on which honesty ranked far below zero.
+Society was nothing but a tissue of lies! It was inexplicable that it
+hadn't been found out long ago! It was high time to examine this fine
+structure and inquire into the condition of its foundations."
+
+They were on friendlier terms on arriving home than they had been for
+many years. The Baroness stayed at home with her baby, and was soon
+expecting a second one. This struggle against the tide was too hard
+for her, and she was already growing tired of it. She was tired of
+everything! To write in an elegantly furnished, well-heated room on
+the subject of discharged prisoners, offering them, at a proper
+distance, a well-gloved hand, was a proceeding society approved of;
+but to hold out the hand of friendship to a woman who had married a
+legally divorced man was quite another thing. Why should it be so? It
+was difficult to find an answer.
+
+The Baron fought in the thick of the battle. He visited the Chamber of
+Deputies, was present at meetings, and everywhere he listened to
+passionate diatribes against society. He read papers and magazines,
+kept a keen eye on literature, studied the subject deeply. His wife
+was threatened by the same fate which had overtaken the first one; to
+be left behind! It was strange. She seemed unable to take in all the
+details of his investigations, she disapproved of much of the new
+doctrine, but she felt that he was right and fighting for a good
+cause. He knew that he could always count on her never-flagging
+sympathy; that he had a friend at home who would always stand by him.
+Their common fate drove them into each other's arms like frightened
+birds at the approach of a storm. All the womanliness in her,--however
+little it may be appreciated now-a-days,--which is after all nothing
+but a memory of the great mother, the force of nature which is woman's
+endowment, was roused. It fell on the children like the warm glow of a
+fire at eventide; it fell on the husband like a ray of sunshine; it
+brought peace to the home. He often wondered how it was that he did
+not miss his old comrade, with whom he was wont to discuss everything;
+he discovered that his thoughts had gained force and vigour since he
+stopped pouring them out as soon as he conceived them; it seemed to
+him that he was profiting more by the silent approval, the kindly nod,
+the unwavering sympathy. He felt that his strength had increased, that
+his views were less under outside control; he was a solitary man, now,
+and yet he was less solitary than he had been in the past, for he was
+no longer constantly met by contradictions which merely filled his
+heart with misgivings.
+
+It was Christmas Eve in Paris. A large Christmas tree, grown in the
+wood of St. Germain, stood in their little chalet on the Cours de la
+Reine. They were going out after breakfast to buy Christmas presents
+for the children. The Baron was pre-occupied, for he had just published
+a little pamphlet, entitled: "Do the Upper Classes constitute Society?"
+They were sitting at breakfast in their cosy dining-room, and the doors
+which led to the nursery stood wide open. They listened to the nurse
+playing with the children, and the Baroness smiled with contentment and
+happiness. She had grown very gentle and her happiness was a quiet one.
+One of the children suddenly screamed and she rose from the table to see
+what was the matter. At the same moment the footman came into the
+dining-room with the morning post. The Baron opened two packets of
+printed matter. The first was a "big respectable" newspaper. He opened
+it and his eyes fell on a headline in fat type: "A Blasphemer!"
+
+He began to read: "Christmas is upon us again! This festival dear to
+all pure hearts, this festival sacred to all Christian nations, which
+has brought a message of peace and good-will to all men, which makes
+even the murderer sheathe his knife, and the thief respect the sacred
+law of property; this festival, which is not only of very ancient
+origin, but which is also, especially in the countries of the North,
+surrounded by a host of historic associations, etc., etc. And then like
+foul fumes arising from a drain, an individual suddenly confronts us
+who does not scruple to tear asunder the most sacred bonds, who vomits
+malice on all respectable members of society; malice, dictated by the
+pettiest vengeance...." He refolded the paper and put it into the
+pocket of his dressing-gown. Then he opened the second parcel. It
+contained caricatures of himself and his wife. It went the same way as
+the first, but he had to be quick, for his wife was re-entering the
+dining-room. He finished his breakfast and went into his bed-room to
+get ready to go out. They left the house together.
+
+The sunlight fell on the frosted plane-trees of the Champs Elysees,
+and in the heart of the stony desert the Place de la Concorde opened
+out like a large oasis. He felt her arm on his, and yet he had the
+feeling as if she were supporting him. She talked of the presents
+which they were going to buy for the children, and he tried to force
+himself to take an interest in the subject. But all at once he
+interrupted her conversation and asked her, a-propos of nothing:
+
+"Do you know the difference between vengeance and punishment?"
+
+"No, I've never thought about it."
+
+"I wonder whether it isn't this: When an anonymous journalist revenges
+himself, it is punishment; but when a well-known writer, who is not a
+pressman, fights with an open visor, meting out punishment, then it is
+revenge! Let us join the new prophets!"
+
+She begged him not to spoil Christmas by talking of the newspapers.
+
+"This festival," he muttered, "on which peace and good-will...."
+
+They passed through the arcades of the Rue de Rivoli, turned into the
+boulevards and made their purchases. They dined at the Grand Hotel.
+She was in a sunny frame of mind and tried to cheer him up. But he
+remained preoccupied. Suddenly he asked,
+
+"How is it possible that one can have a bad conscience when one has
+acted rightly?"
+
+She did not know.
+
+"Is it because the upper classes have so trained us, that our conscience
+troubles us whenever we rebel against them? Probably it is so. Why
+shouldn't he who has been hurt unjustly, have the right to attack
+injustice? Because only he who has been hurt will attack, and the upper
+classes hate being attacked. Why did I not strike at the upper classes
+in the past, when I belonged to them? Because, of course, I didn't know
+them then. One must look at a picture from a distance in order to find
+the correct visual point!"
+
+"One shouldn't talk about such things on Christmas Eve!"
+
+"True, it is Christmas. This festival of...."
+
+They returned home. They lit the candles on the Christmas tree; it
+radiated peace and happiness; but its dark branches smelt of a funeral
+and looked sinister, like the Baron's face. The nurse came in with the
+little ones. His face lighted up, for, he thought, when they are grown
+up they will reap in joy what we have sown in tears; then their
+conscience will only trouble them when they have sinned against the
+laws of nature; they won't have to suffer from whims which have been
+caned into us at school, drummed into us by the parsons, invented by
+the upper classes for their own benefit.
+
+The Baroness sat down at the piano when the maids and the footmen
+entered. She played melancholy old dances, dear to the heart of the
+people of the North, while the servants danced gravely with the
+children. It was very much like the penitential part of divine
+service.
+
+After that the presents were distributed among the children, and the
+servants received their gifts. And then the children were put to bed.
+
+The Baroness went into the drawing-room and sat down in an arm-chair.
+The Baron threw himself on a footstool at her feet. He rested his head
+on her knees. It was so heavy--so heavy. She silently stroked his
+forehead. "What! was he weeping?"
+
+"Yes!"
+
+She had never before seen a man weep. It was a terrible sight. His big
+strong frame shook, but he made no sound.
+
+"Why was he weeping?"
+
+"Because he was unhappy."
+
+"Unhappy with her?"
+
+"No, no, not with her, but still, unhappy."
+
+"Had anybody treated him badly?"
+
+"Yes!"
+
+"Couldn't he tell her all about it?"
+
+"No, he only wanted to sit at her knees, as he used to sit long ago,
+at his mother's."
+
+She talked to him as if he had been a child. She kissed his eyes and
+wiped his face with her handkerchief. She felt so proud, so strong,
+there were no tears in her eyes. The sight of her inspired him with
+new courage.
+
+"How weak he had been! That he should have found the machine-made
+attacks of his opponents so hard to bear! Did his enemies really
+believe what they said?"
+
+"Terrible thought! Probably they did. One often found stones firmly
+grown into pine-trees, why should not opinions grow into the brain in
+the same way? But she believed in him, she knew that he was fighting
+for a good cause?"
+
+"Yes, she believed it! But--he must not be angry with her for asking
+him such a question--but--did he not miss his child, the first one?"
+
+"Yes, certainly, but it could not be helped. At least, not yet! But he
+and the others who were working for the future would have to find a
+remedy for that, too. He did not know, yet, what form that remedy
+would take, but stronger brains than his, and many together, would
+surely one day solve this problem which at present seemed insolvable."
+
+"Yes, she hoped it would be so."
+
+"But their marriage? Was it a marriage in the true sense of the word,
+seeing that he couldn't tell her what troubled him? Wasn't it, too,
+pro...?"
+
+"No, it was a true marriage, for they loved one another. There had
+been no love between him and his first wife. But he and she did love
+one another, could she deny it?"
+
+"She couldn't, he was her dear love." Then their marriage was a true
+marriage before God and before Nature.
+
+
+
+
+UNNATURAL SELECTION OR THE ORIGIN OF RACE
+
+
+The Baron had read in _The Slaves of Life_ with disgust and indignation
+that the children of the aristocracy were bound to perish unless they
+took the mothers' milk from the children of the lower classes. He had
+read Darwin and believed that the gist of his teaching was that through
+selection the children of the aristocracy had come to be more highly
+developed representatives of the genus "Man." But the doctrine of
+heredity made him look upon the employment of a foster-mother with
+aversion; for might not, with the blood of the lower classes, certain
+conceptions, ideas and desires be introduced and propagated in the
+aristocratic nursling? He was therefore determined that his wife should
+nurse her baby herself, and if she should prove incapable of doing so,
+the child should be brought up with the bottle. He had a right to the
+cows' milk, for they fed on his hay; without it they would starve, or
+would not have come into existence at all. The baby was born. It was a
+son! The father had been somewhat anxious before he became certain of
+his wife's condition, for he was, personally, a poor man; his wife, on
+the other hand, was very wealthy, but he had no claim to her fortune
+unless their union was blest with a legal heir, (in accordance with the
+law of entail chap. 00 par. 00). His joy was therefore great and genuine.
+The baby was a transparent little thoroughbred, with blue veins shining
+through his waxen skin. Nevertheless his blood was poor. His mother who
+possessed the figure of an angel, was brought up on choice food, protected
+by rich furs from all the eccentricities of the climate, and had that
+aristocratic pallor which denotes the woman of noble descent.
+
+She nursed the baby herself. There was consequently no need to become
+indebted to peasant women for the privilege of enjoying life on this
+planet. Nothing but fables, all he had read about it! The baby sucked
+and screamed for a fortnight. But all babies scream. It meant nothing.
+But it lost flesh. It became terribly emaciated. The doctor was sent
+for. He had a private conversation with the father, during which he
+declared that the baby would die if the Baroness continued to nurse
+him, because she was firstly too highly strung, and secondly had
+nothing with which to feed him. He took the trouble to make a
+quantitative analysis of the milk, and proved (by equations) that the
+child was bound to starve unless there was a change in the method of
+his feeding.
+
+What was to be done? On no account could the baby be allowed to die.
+
+Bottle or foster mother? The latter was out of the question. Let us
+try the bottle! The doctor, however, prescribed a foster mother.
+
+The best Dutch cow, which had received the gold medal for the district,
+was isolated and fed with hay; with dry hay of the finest quality. The
+doctor analysed the milk, everything was all right. How simple the system
+was! How strange that they had not thought of it before! After all, one
+need not engage a foster mother a tyrant before whom one had to cringe,
+a loafer one had to fatten; not to mention the fact that she might have
+an infectious disease.
+
+But the baby continued to lose flesh and to scream. It screamed night
+and day. There was no doubt it suffered from colic. A new cow was
+procured and a fresh analysis made. The milk was mixed with Karlsbad
+water, genuine Sprudel, but the baby went on screaming.
+
+"There's no remedy but to engage a foster mother," said the doctor.
+
+"Oh! anything but that! One did not want to rob other children, it was
+against nature, and, moreover, what about heredity?"
+
+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 employes, 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 naively.
+
+"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!
+
+She stayed at home for the last month, for the walk to and from her
+office four times a day was too much for her. And she was always so
+hungry! She had to send out for sandwiches in the morning. And every
+now and then she felt faint and had to take a rest. What a life! A
+woman's lot was indeed a miserable one.
+
+The baby was born.
+
+"Shall we board it out?" asked the father.
+
+"Had he no heart?"
+
+"Oh! yes, of course he had!"
+
+And the baby remained at home.
+
+Then a very polite letter arrived from the head office, enquiring after
+the young mother's health.
+
+"She was very well and would be back at the office on the day after
+to-morrow."
+
+She was still a little weak and had to take a cab; but she soon picked
+up her strength. However, a new difficulty now presented itself. She
+must be kept informed of the baby's condition; a messenger boy was
+despatched to her home, at first twice a day, then every two hours.
+
+And when she was told that the baby had been crying, she put on her
+hat and rushed home at once. But the assistant was there, ready to
+take her place. The head clerk was very civil and made no comment.
+
+One day the young mother discovered accidentally that the nurse was
+unable to feed the baby, but had concealed the fact for fear of losing
+her place. She had to take a day off in order to find a new foster mother.
+But they were all alike; brutal egoists every one of them, who took no
+interest in the children of strangers. No one could ever depend on them.
+
+"No," agreed the husband, "in a case of this sort one can only depend on
+oneself."
+
+"Do you mean to insinuate that I ought to give up my work?"
+
+"Oh! You must do as you like about that!"
+
+"And become your slave!"
+
+"No, I don't mean that at all!"
+
+The little one was not at all well; all children are ill occasionally.
+He was teething! One day's leave after another! The poor baby suffered
+from toothache. She had to soothe him at night, work at the office
+during the day, sleepy, tired, anxious, and again take a day off.
+
+The green forester did his best and carried the baby about in his arms
+half the night, but he never said a word about his wife's work at the
+goods department.
+
+Nevertheless she knew what was in his mind. He was waiting for her to
+give in; but he was deceitful and so he said nothing! How treacherous
+men were! She hated him; she would sooner kill herself than throw up
+her work and "be his slave."
+
+The forester saw quite clearly now that it was impossible for any
+woman to emancipate herself from the laws of nature; _under present
+circumstances_, he was shrewd enough to add.
+
+When the baby was five months old, it was plainly evident that the
+whole thing would before very long repeat itself.
+
+What a catastrophe!
+
+But when that sort of thing once begins....
+
+The forester was obliged to resume his lessons at the girls' school to
+augment their income, and now--she laid down her arms.
+
+"I am your slave, now," she groaned, when she came home with her
+discharge.
+
+Nevertheless she is the head of the house, and he gives her every
+penny he earns. When he wants to buy a cigar he makes a long speech
+before he ventures to ask for the money. She never refuses it to him,
+but all the same he finds the asking for it unpleasant. He is allowed
+to attend meetings, but no dinners, and all botanising with girls is
+strictly forbidden. He does not miss it much, for he prefers playing
+with his children.
+
+His colleagues call him henpecked; but he smiles, and tells them that
+he is happy in spite of it, because he has in his wife a very sweet
+and sensible companion.
+
+She, on her part, obstinately maintains that she is nothing but his
+slave, whatever he might say to the contrary. It is her one comfort,
+poor, little woman!
+
+
+
+
+A DOLL'S HOUSE
+
+
+They had been married for six years, but they were still more like
+lovers than husband and wife. He was a captain in the navy, and every
+summer he was obliged to leave her for a few months; twice he had been
+away on a long voyage. But his short absences were a blessing in
+disguise, for if their relations had grown a little stale during the
+winter, the summer trip invariably restored them to their former
+freshness and delightfulness.
+
+During the first summer he wrote veritable love-letters to her and
+never passed a sailing ship without signalling: "Will you take
+letters?" And when he came in sight of the landmarks of the Stockholm
+Archipelago, he did not know how to get to her quickly enough. But she
+found a way. She wired him to Landsort that she would meet him at
+Dalaroe. When he anchored, he saw a little blue scarf fluttering on the
+verandah of the hotel: then he knew that it was she. But there was so
+much to do aboard that it was evening before he could go ashore. He
+saw her from his gig on the landing-stage as the bow held out his oar
+to fend off; she was every bit as young, as pretty and as strong as
+she had been when he left her; it was exactly as if they were
+re-living the first spring days of their love. A delicious little
+supper waited for him in the two little rooms she had engaged. What a
+lot they had to talk about! The voyage, the children, the future! The
+wine sparkled in the glasses and his kisses brought the blood to her
+cheeks.
+
+Tattoo went on the ship, but he took no notice of it, for he did not
+intend to leave her before one o'clock.
+
+"What? He was going?"
+
+"Yes; he must get back aboard, but it would do if he was there for the
+morning watch."
+
+"When did the morning watch begin?"
+
+"At five o'clock."
+
+"Oh!... As early as that!"
+
+"But where was she going to stay the night?"
+
+"That was her business!"
+
+He guessed it and wanted to have a look at her room; but she planted
+herself firmly on the threshold. He covered her face with kisses, took
+her in his arms as if she were a baby and opened the door.
+
+"What an enormous bed! It was like the long boat. Where did the people
+get it from?"
+
+She blushed crimson.
+
+"Of course, she had understood from his letter that they would stay at
+the hotel together."
+
+"Well, and so they would, in spite of his having to be back aboard for
+the morning watch. What did he care for the stupid morning prayers!"
+
+"How could he say such a thing!"
+
+"Hadn't they better have some coffee and a fire? The sheets felt damp!
+What a sensible little rogue she was to provide for his staying, too!
+Who would have thought that she had so much sense? Where did she get
+it from?"
+
+"She didn't get it from anywhere!"
+
+"No? Well, he might have known! He might have known everything!"
+
+"Oh! But he was so stupid!"
+
+"Indeed, he was stupid, was he?"
+
+And he slipped his arm round her waist.
+
+"But he ought to behave himself!"
+
+"Behave himself? It was easy to talk!"
+
+"The girl was coming with the wood!"
+
+When it struck two, and sea and Skerries were flaming in the east,
+they were sitting at the open window.
+
+"They were lovers still, weren't they? And now he must go. But he
+would be back at ten, for breakfast, and after that they would go for
+a sail."
+
+He made some coffee on her spirit lamp, and they drank it while the
+sun was rising and the seagulls screamed. The gunboat was lying far
+out at sea and every now and then he saw the cutlasses of the watch
+glinting in the sunlight. It was hard to part, but the certainty of
+meeting again in a few hours' time helped them to bear it. He kissed
+her for the last time, buckled on his sword and left her.
+
+When he arrived at the bridge and shouted: "boat ahoy!" she hid
+herself behind the window curtains as if she were ashamed to be seen.
+He blew kisses to her until the sailors came with the gig. Then a last:
+"Sleep well and dream of me" and the gig put off. He watched her
+through his glasses, and for a long time he could distinguish a little
+figure with black hair. The sunbeams fell on her nightdress and bare
+throat and made her look like a mermaid.
+
+The reveille went. The longdrawn bugle notes rolled out between the
+green islands over the shining water and returned from behind the pine
+woods. The whole crew assembled on deck and the Lord's Prayer and
+"Jesus, at the day's beginning" were read. The little church tower of
+Dalaroe answered with a faint ringing of bells, for it was Sunday.
+Cutters came up in the morning breeze: flags were flying, shots
+resounded, light summer dresses gleamed on the bridge, the steamer,
+leaving a crimson track behind her, steamed up, the fishers hauled in
+their nets, and the sun shone on the blue, billowy water and the green
+islands.
+
+At ten o'clock six pairs rowed the gig ashore from the gunboat. They
+were together again. And as they sat at breakfast in the large
+dining-room, the hotel guests watched and whispered: "Is she his
+wife?" He talked to her in an undertone like a lover, and she cast
+down her eyes and smiled; or hit his fingers with her dinner napkin.
+
+The boat lay alongside the bridge; she sat at the helm, he looked
+after the foresail. But he could not take his eyes off her finely
+shaped figure in the light summer dress, her determined little face
+and proud eyes, as she sat looking to windward, while her little hand
+in its strong leather glove held the mainsheet. He wanted to talk to
+her and was purposely clumsy in tacking; then she scolded him as if he
+were a cabin boy, which amused him immensely.
+
+"Why didn't you bring the baby with you?" he asked her teasingly.
+
+"Where should I have put it to sleep?"
+
+"In the long boat, of course?"
+
+She smiled at him in a way which filled his heart with happiness.
+
+"Well, and what did the proprietress say this morning?"
+
+"What should she say?"
+
+"Did she sleep well last night?"
+
+"Why shouldn't she sleep well?"
+
+"I don't know; she might have been kept awake by rats, or perhaps by
+the rattling of a window; who can tell what might not disturb the gentle
+sleep of an old maid!"
+
+"If you don't stop talking nonsense, I shall make the sheet fast and
+sail you to the bottom of the sea."
+
+They landed at a small island and ate their luncheon which they had
+brought with them in a little basket. After lunch they shot at a
+target with a revolver. Then they pretended to fish with rods, but
+they caught nothing and sailed out again into the open sea where the
+eidergeese were, through a strait where they watched the carp playing
+about the rushes. He never tired of looking at her, talking to her,
+kissing her.
+
+In this manner they met for six summers, and always they were just as
+young, just as mad and just as happy as before. They spent the winter
+in Stockholm in their little cabins. He amused himself by rigging boats
+for his little boys or telling them stories of his adventures in China
+and the South Sea Islands, while his wife sat by him, listening and
+laughing at his funny tales. It was a charming room, that could not be
+equalled in the whole world. It was crammed full of Japanese sunshades
+and armour, miniature pagodas from India, bows and lances from Australia,
+nigger drums and dried flying fish, sugar cane and opium pipes. Papa,
+whose hair was growing thin at the top, did not feel very happy outside
+his own four walls. Occasionally he played at draughts with his friend,
+the auditor, and sometimes they had a game at Boston and drank a glass
+of grog. At first his wife had joined in the game, but now that she had
+four children, she was too busy; nevertheless, she liked to sit with the
+players for a little and look at their cards, and whenever she passed
+Papa's chair he caught her round the waist and asked her whether she
+thought he ought to be pleased with his hand.
+
+This time the corvette was to be away for six months. The captain did
+not feel easy about it, for the children were growing up and the
+responsibility of the big establishment was too much for Mama. The
+captain himself was not quite so young and vigorous as he had been,
+but--it could not be helped and so he left.
+
+Directly he arrived at Kronborg he posted a letter to her.
+
+  "My darling Topmast," it began.
+
+  "Wind moderate, S.S.E. by E. + 10 deg. C. 6 bells, watch below. I cannot
+  express in words what I feel on this voyage during which I shall not
+  see you. When we kedged out (at 6 p.m. while a strong gale blew from
+  N.E. by N.) I felt as if a belaying pin were suddenly being driven
+  into my chest and I actually had a sensation as if a chain had been
+  drawn through the hawsepipes of my ears. They say that sailors can
+  feel the approach of misfortune. I don't know whether this is true,
+  but I shall not feel easy until I have had a letter from you. Nothing
+  has happened on board, simply because nothing must happen. How are you
+  all at home? Has Bob had his new boots, and do they fit? I am a
+  wretched correspondent as you know, so 111 stop now. With a big kiss
+  right on this x.
+
+  "Your old Pal.
+
+  "P.S. You ought to find a friend (female, of course) and don't forget
+  to ask the proprietress at Dalaro to take care of the long boat until
+  my return. The wind is getting up; it will blow from the North to-night."
+
+Off Portsmouth the captain received the following letter from his
+wife:
+
+  "Dear old Pal,
+
+  "It's horrible here without you, believe me. I have had a lot of
+  worry, too, for little Alice has got a new tooth. The doctor said it
+  was unusually early, which was a sign of (but I'm not going to tell
+  you that). Bob's boots fit him very well and he is very proud of them.
+
+  "You say in your letter that I ought to find a friend of my own sex.
+  Well, I have found one, or, rather, she has found me. Her name is
+  Ottilia Sandegren, and she was educated at the seminary. She is rather
+  grave and takes life very seriously, therefore you need not be afraid,
+  Pal, that your Topmast will be led astray. Moreover, she is religious.
+  We really ought to take religion a little more seriously, both of us.
+  She is a splendid woman. She has just arrived and sends you her kind
+  regards.
+
+  "Your Gurli."
+
+The captain was not overpleased with this letter. It was too short and
+not half as bright as her letters generally were. Seminary, religion,
+grave, Ottilia: Ottilia twice! And then Gurli! Why not Gulla as
+before? H'm!
+
+A week later he received a second letter from Bordeaux, a letter which
+was accompanied by a book, sent under separate cover.
+
+"Dear William!"--"H'm! William! No longer Pal!"--"Life is a
+struggle"--"What the deuce does she mean? What has that to do with
+us?"--"from beginning to end. Gently as a river in Kedron"--"Kedron!
+she's quoting the Bible!"--"our life has glided along. Like sleepwalkers
+we have been walking on the edge of precipices without being aware of
+them"--"The seminary, oh! the seminary!"--"Suddenly we find ourselves
+face to face with the ethical"--"The ethical? Ablative!"--"asserting
+itself in its higher potencies!"--"Potencies?"--"Now that I am awake
+from my long sleep and ask myself: has our marriage been a marriage in
+the true sense of the word? I must admit with shame and remorse that
+this has not been the case. For love is of divine origin. (St. Matthew
+xi. 22, 24.)"
+
+The captain had to mix himself a glass of rum and water before he felt
+able to continue his reading.--"How earthly, how material our love has
+been! Have our souls lived in that harmony of which Plato speaks?
+(Phaidon, Book vi. Chap. ii. Par. 9). Our answer is bound to be in the
+negative. What have I been to you? A housekeeper and, oh! The disgrace!
+your mistress! Have our souls understood one another? Again we are bound
+to answer 'No.'"--"To Hell with all Ottilias and seminaries!
+Has she been my housekeeper? She has been my wife and the mother of my
+children!"--"Read the book I have sent you! It will answer all your
+questions. It voices that which for centuries has lain hidden in the
+hearts of all women! Read it, and then tell me if you think that our
+union has been a true marriage. Your Gurli."
+
+His presentiment of evil had not deceived him. The captain was beside
+himself; he could not understand what had happened to his wife. It was
+worse than religious hypocrisy.
+
+He tore off the wrapper and read on the title page of a book in a
+paper cover: _Et Dukkehjem af Henrik Ibsen_. A Doll's House? Well,
+and--? His home had been a charming doll's house; his wife had been
+his little doll and he had been her big doll. They had danced along
+the stony path of life and had been happy. What more did they want?
+What was wrong? He must read the book at once and find out.
+
+He finished it in three hours. His brain reeled. How did it concern
+him and his wife? Had they forged bills? No! Hadn't they loved one
+another? Of course they had!
+
+He locked himself into his cabin and read the book a second time; he
+underlined passages in red and blue, and when the dawn broke, he took
+"A well-meant little ablative on the play _A Doll's House_, written by
+the old Pal on board the Vanadis in the Atlantic off Bordeaux. (Lat. 45 deg.
+Long. 16 deg..)
+
+  "1. She married him because he was in love with her and that was a
+  deuced clever thing to do. For if she had waited until she had fallen
+  in love with someone, it might have happened that _he_ would not have
+  fallen in love with her, and then there would have been the devil to
+  pay. For it happens very rarely that both parties are equally in love."
+
+  "2. She forges a bill. That was foolish, but it is not true that it
+  was done for the husband's sake only, for she has never loved him; it
+  would have been the truth if she had said that she had done it for him,
+  herself and the children. Is that clear?"
+
+  "3. That he wants to embrace her after the ball is only a proof of his
+  love for her, and there is no wrong in that; but it should not be done
+  on the stage. "_Il y a des choses qui se font mais que ne se disent
+  point_,' as the French say, Moreover, if the poet had been fair, he
+  would also save shown an opposite case. '_La petite chienne veut, mais
+  le grand chien ne veut pas_,' says Ollendorf. (Vide the long boat at
+  Dalaroe.)"
+
+  "4. That she, when she discovers that her husband is a fool (and that
+  he is when he offers to condone her offence because it has not leaked
+  out) decides to leave her children 'not considering herself worthy of
+  bringing them up,' is a not very clever trick of coquetry. If they have
+  both been fools (and surely they don't teach at the seminary that it
+  is right to forge bills) they should pull well together in future in
+  double harness."
+
+  "Least of all is she justified in leaving her children's education in
+  the hands of the father whom she despises."
+
+  "5. Nora has consequently every reason for staying with her children
+  when she discovers what an imbecile her husband is."
+
+  "6. The husband cannot be blamed for not sufficiently appreciating
+  her, for she doesn't reveal her true character until after the row."
+
+  "7. Nora has undoubtedly been a fool; she herself does not deny it."
+
+  "8. There is every guarantee of their pulling together more happily
+  in future; he has repented and promised to turn over a new leaf. So
+  has she. Very well! Here's my hand, let's begin again at the beginning.
+  Birds of a feather flock together. There's nothing lost, we've both
+  been fools! You, little Nora, were badly brought up. I, old rascal,
+  didn't know any better. We are both to be pitied. Pelt our teachers
+  with rotten eggs, but don't hit me alone on the head. I, though a man,
+  am every bit as innocent as you are! Perhaps even a little more so,
+  for I married for love, you for a home. Let us be friends, therefore,
+  and together teach our children the valuable lesson we have learnt
+  in the school of life."
+
+  Is that clear? All right then!
+
+  This was written by Captain Pal with his stiff fingers and slow brain!
+
+  And now, my darling dolly, I have read your book and given you my
+  opinion. But what have we to do with it? Didn't we love one another?
+  Haven't we educated one another and helped one another to rub off our
+  sharp corners? Surely you'll remember that we had many a little
+  encounter in the beginning! What fads of yours are those? To hell with
+  all Ottilias and seminaries!
+
+  The book you sent me is a queer book. It is like a watercourse with
+  an insufficient number of buoys, so that one might run aground at any
+  moment. But I pricked the chart and found calm waters. Only, I
+  couldn't do it again. The devil may crack these nuts which are rotten
+  inside when one has managed to break the shell. I wish you peace and
+  happiness and the recovery of your sound common sense.
+
+  "How are the little ones? You forgot to mention them. Probably you
+  were thinking too much of Nora's unfortunate kiddies, (which exist
+  only in a play of that sort). Is my little boy crying? My nightingale
+  singing, my dolly dancing? She must always do that if she wants to
+  make her old pal happy. And now may God bless you and prevent evil
+  thoughts from rising between us. My heart is sadder than I can tell.
+  And I am expected to sit down and write a critique on a play. God
+  bless you and the babies; kiss their rosy cheeks for your faithful
+  old Pal."
+
+When the captain had sent off his letter, he went into the officers'
+mess and drank a glass of punch. The doctor was there, too.
+
+"Have you noticed a smell of old black breeches?" he asked. "I should
+like to hoist myself up to the cat block and let a good old N.W. by N.
+blow right through me."
+
+But the doctor did not understand what he was driving at.
+
+"Ottilia, Ottilia!... What she wants is a taste of the handspike. Send
+the witch to the quarterdeck and let the second mess loose on her behind
+closed hatches. One knows what is good for an old maid."
+
+"What's the matter with you, old chap?" asked the doctor.
+
+"Plato! Plato! To the devil with Plato! To be six months at sea makes
+one sick of Plato. That teaches one ethics! Ethics? I bet a marlinspike
+to a large rifle: if Ottilia were married she would cease talking of
+Plato."
+
+"What on earth _is_ the matter?"
+
+"Nothing. Do you hear? You're a doctor. What's the matter with those
+women? Isn't it bad for them to remain unmarried? Doesn't it make
+them...? What?"
+
+The doctor gave him his candid opinion and added that he was sorry
+that there were not enough men to go round.
+
+"In a state of nature the male is mostly polygamous; in most cases
+there is no obstacle to this, as there is plenty of food for the young
+ones (beasts of prey excepted): abnormalities like unmated females do
+not exist in nature. But in civilised countries, where a man is lucky
+if he earns enough bread, it is a common occurrence, especially as the
+females are in preponderance. One ought to treat unmarried women with
+kindness, for their lot is a melancholy one."
+
+"With kindness! That's all very well; but supposing they are anything
+but kind themselves!"
+
+And he told the doctor the whole story, even confessing that he had
+written a critique on a play.
+
+"Oh! well, no end of nonsense is written," said the doctor, putting
+his hand on the lid of the jug which contained the punch. "In the end
+science decides all great questions! Science, and nothing else."
+
+When the six months were over and the captain, who had been in
+constant, but not very pleasant, correspondence with his wife, (she
+had sharply criticised his critique), at last landed at Dalaroe, he was
+received by his wife, all the children, two servants and Ottilia. His
+wife was affectionate, but not cordial. She held up her brow to be
+kissed. Ottilia was as tall as a stay, and wore her hair short; seen
+from the back she looked like a swab. The supper was dull and they
+drank only tea. The long boat took in a cargo of children and the
+captain was lodged in one of the attics.
+
+What a change! Poor old Pal looked old and felt puzzled.
+
+"To be married and yet not have a wife," he thought, "it's
+intolerable!"
+
+On the following morning he wanted to take his wife for a sail. But
+the sea did not agree with Ottilia. She had been ill on the steamer.
+And, moreover, it was Sunday. Sunday? That was it! Well, they would go
+for a walk. They had a lot to talk about. Of course, they had a lot to
+say to each other. But Ottilia was not to come with them!
+
+They went out together, arm in arm. But they did not talk much; and
+what they said were words uttered for the sake of concealing their
+thoughts more than for the sake of exchanging ideas.
+
+They passed the little cholera cemetery and took the road leading to
+the Swiss Valley. A faint breeze rustled through the pine trees and
+glimpses of the blue sea flashed through the dark branches.
+
+They sat down on a stone. He threw himself on the turf at her feet.
+Now the storm is going to burst, he thought, and it did.
+
+"Have you thought at all about our marriage?" she began.
+
+"No," he replied, with every appearance of having fully considered the
+matter, "I have merely felt about it. In my opinion love is a matter
+of sentiment; one steers by landmarks and makes port; take compass and
+chart and you are sure to founder."
+
+"Yes, but our home has been nothing but a doll's house."
+
+"Excuse me, but this is not quite true. You have never forged a bill;
+you have never shown your ankles to a syphilitic doctor of whom you
+wanted to borrow money against security _in natura_; you have never
+been so romantically silly as to expect your husband to give himself
+up for a crime which his wife had committed from ignorance, and which
+was not a crime because there was no plaintiff; and you have never
+lied to me. I have treated you every bit as honestly as Helmer treated
+his wife when he took her into his full confidence and allowed her to
+have a voice in the banking business; tolerated her interference with
+the appointment of an employee. We have therefore been husband and
+wife according to all conceptions, old and new-fashioned."
+
+"Yes, but I have been your housekeeper!"
+
+"Pardon me, you are wrong. You have never had a meal in the kitchen,
+you have never received wages, you have never had to account for money
+spent. I have never scolded you because one thing or the other was not
+to my liking. And do you consider my work: to reckon and to brace, to
+ease off and call out 'Present arms,' count herrings and measure rum,
+weigh peas and examine flour, more honourable than yours: to look
+after the servants, cater for the house and bring up the children?"
+
+"No, but you are paid for your work! You are your own master! You are
+a man!"
+
+"My dear child, do you want me to give you wages? Do you want to be my
+housekeeper in real earnest? That I was born a man is an accident. I
+might almost say a pity, for it's very nearly a crime to be a man
+now-a-days, but it isn't my fault. The devil take him who has stirred
+up the two halves of humanity, one against the other! He has much to
+answer for. Am I the master? Don't we both rule? Have I ever decided
+any important matter without asking for your advice? What? But you--you
+bring up the children exactly as you like! Don't you remember that I
+wanted you to stop rocking them to sleep because I said it produced a
+sort of intoxication? But you had your own way! Another time I had mine,
+and then it was your turn again. There was no compromise possible,
+because there was no middle course to steer between rocking and not
+rocking. We got on very well until now. But you have thrown me over for
+Ottilia's sake!"
+
+"Ottilia! always Ottilia! Didn't you yourself send her to me?"
+
+"No, not her personally! But there can be no doubt that it is she who
+rules now."
+
+"You want to separate me from all I care for!"
+
+"Is Ottilia all you care for? It almost looks like it!"
+
+"But I can't send her away now that I have engaged her to teach the
+girls pedagogics and Latin."
+
+"Latin! Great Scott! Are the girls to be ruined?"
+
+"They are to know everything a man knows, so that when the time comes,
+their marriage will be a true marriage."
+
+"But, my love, all husbands don't know Latin! I don't know more than
+one single word, and that is 'ablative.' And we have been happy in
+spite of it. Moreover, there is a movement to strike off Latin from
+the plan of instruction for boys, as a superfluous accomplishment.
+Doesn't this teach you a lot? Isn't it enough that the men are ruined,
+are the women to be ruined, too? Ottilia, Ottilia, what have I done to
+you, that you should treat me like this!"
+
+"Supposing we dropped that matter.--Our love, William, has not been
+what it should be. It has been sensual!"
+
+"But, my darling, how could we have had children, if it hadn't? And it
+has not been sensual only."
+
+"Can a thing be both black and white? Tell me that!"
+
+"Of course, it can. There's your sunshade for instance, it is black
+outside and white inside."
+
+"Sophist!"
+
+"Listen to me, sweetheart, tell me in your own way the thoughts which
+are in your heart; don't talk like Ottilia's books. Don't let your head
+run away with you; be yourself again, my sweet, darling little wife."
+
+"Yours, your property, bought with your labour."
+
+"Just as I am your property, your husband, at whom no other woman is
+allowed to look if she wants to keep her eyes in her head; your husband,
+who made a present of himself to you, or rather, gave himself to you in
+exchange. Are we not quits?"
+
+"But we have trifled away our lives! Have we ever had any higher
+interests, William?"
+
+"Yes, the very highest, Gurli; we have not always been playing, we
+have had grave hours, too. Have we not called into being generations
+to come? Have we not both bravely worked and striven for the little
+ones, who are to grow up into men and women? Have you not faced death
+four times for their sakes? Have you not robbed yourself of your
+nights' rest in order to rock their cradle, and of your days'
+pleasures, in order to attend to them? Couldn't we now have a large
+six-roomed flat in the main street, and a footman to open the door, if
+it were not for the children? Wouldn't you be able to wear silk
+dresses and pearls? And I, your old Pal, wouldn't have _crows' nests_
+in my knees, if it hadn't been for the kiddies. Are we really no
+better than dolls? Are we as selfish as old maids say? Old maids,
+rejected by men as no good. Why are so many girls unmarried? They all
+boast of proposals and yet they pose as martyrs! Higher interests!
+Latin! To dress in low neck dresses for charitable purposes and leave
+the children at home, neglected! I believe that my interests are
+higher than Ottilia's, when I want strong and healthy children, who
+will succeed where we have failed. But Latin won't help them! Goodbye,
+Gurli! I have to go back on board. Are you coming?"
+
+But she remained sitting on the stone and made no answer. He went with
+heavy footsteps, very heavy footsteps. And the blue sea grew dark and
+the sun ceased shining.
+
+"Pal, Pal, where is this to lead to?" he sighed, as he stepped over
+the fence of the cemetery. "I wish I lay there, with a wooden cross to
+mark my place, among the roots of the trees. But I am sure I couldn't
+rest, if I were there without her! Oh! Gurli! Gurli!
+
+"Everything has gone wrong, now, mother," said the captain on a chilly
+autumn day to his mother-in-law, to whom he was paying a visit.
+
+"What's the matter, Willy, dear?"
+
+"Yesterday they met at our house. On the day before yesterday at the
+Princess's. Little Alice was suddenly taken ill. It was unfortunate,
+of course, but I didn't dare to send for Gurli, for fear she might
+think that it was done on purpose to annoy her! Oh! when once one has
+lost faith.... I asked a friend at the Admiralty yesterday whether it
+was legal in Sweden to kill one's wife's friends with tobacco smoke. I
+was told it wasn't, and that even if it were it was better not to do
+it, for fear of doing more harm than good. If only it happened to be
+an admirer! I should take him by the neck and throw him out of the
+window. What am I to do?"
+
+"It's a difficult matter, Willy, dear, but we shall be able to think
+of a way out of it. You can't go on living like a bachelor."
+
+"No, of course, I can't."
+
+"I spoke very plainly to her, a day or two ago. I told her that she
+would lose you if she didn't mend her ways."
+
+"And what did she say?"
+
+"She said you had a right to do as you liked with your body."
+
+"Indeed! And she, too? A fine theory! My hair is fast turning grey,
+mother!"
+
+"It's a good old scheme to make a wife jealous. It's generally kill or
+cure, for if there is any love left, it brings it out."
+
+"There is, I know, there is!"
+
+"Of course, there is. Love doesn't die suddenly; it gets used up in
+the course of the years, perhaps. Have a flirtation with Ottilia, and
+we shall see!"
+
+"Flirt with Ottilia? With Ottilia?"
+
+"Try it. Aren't you up in any of the subjects which interest her?"
+
+"Well, yes! They are deep in statistics, now. Fallen women, infectious
+diseases. If I could lead the conversation to mathematics! I am well
+up in that!"
+
+"There you are! Begin with mathematics--by and by put her shawl round
+her shoulders and button her overshoes. Take her home in the evening.
+Drink her health and kiss her when Gurli is sure to see it. If necessary,
+be a little officious. She won't be angry, believe me. And give her a
+big dose of mathematics, so big that Gurli has no option but to sit and
+listen to it quietly. Come again in a week's time and tell me the
+result."
+
+The captain went home, read the latest pamphlets on immorality and at
+once started to carry out his scheme.
+
+A week later he called on his mother-in-law, serene and smiling, and
+greatly enjoying a glass of good sherry. He was in high spirits.
+
+"Now tell me all about it," said the old woman, pushing her spectacles
+up on her forehead.
+
+"It was difficult work at first," he began, "for she distrusted me.
+She thought I was making fun of her. Then I mentioned the effect which
+the computation of probabilities had had on the statistics of morality
+in America. I told her that it had simply been epoch-making. She knew
+nothing about it, but the subject attracted her. I gave her examples
+and proved in figures that it was possible to calculate with a certain
+amount of probability the percentage of women who are bound to fall.
+She was amazed. I saw that her curiosity was aroused and that she was
+eager to provide herself with a trump-card for the next meeting. Gurli
+was pleased to see that Ottilia and I were making friends, and did
+everything to further my scheme. She pushed her into my room and
+closed the door; and there we sat all afternoon, making calculations.
+The old witch was happy, for she felt that she was making use of me,
+and after three hours' work we were fast friends. At supper my wife
+found that such old friends as Ottilia and I ought to call one another
+by their Christian names. I brought out my good old sherry to
+celebrate the occasion. And then I kissed her on the lips, may God
+forgive me for my sins! Gurli looked a little startled, but did not
+seem to mind. She was radiant with happiness. The sherry was strong
+and Ottilia was weak. I wrapped her in her cloak and took her home. I
+gently squeezed her arm and told her the names of the stars. She
+became enthusiastic! She had always loved the stars, but had never
+been able to remember their names. The poor women were not allowed to
+acquire any knowledge. Her enthusiasm grew and we parted as the very
+best of friends who had been kept apart through misunderstanding each
+other for such a long, long time.
+
+"On the next day more mathematics. We worked until supper time. Gurli
+came in once or twice and gave us an encouraging nod. At supper we
+talked of nothing but stars and mathematics, and Gurli sat there,
+silently, listening to us. Again I took her home. On my way back I met
+a friend. We went to the Grand Hotel and drank a glass of punch. It
+was one o'clock when I came home. Gurli was still up waiting for me.
+
+"'Where have you been all this time, William?' she asked.
+
+"Then the devil entered into my soul and I replied:
+
+"'We had such a lot to talk about that I forgot all about the time.'
+
+"_That_ blow struck home.
+
+"'I don't think it's nice to run about half the night with a young
+woman,' she said.
+
+"I pretended to be embarrassed and stammered:
+
+"'If one has so much to say to one another, one forgets sometimes what
+is nice and what is not.'
+
+"'What on earth did you talk about?' asked Gurli, pouting. "'I really
+can't remember.'
+
+"You managed very well, my boy," said the old woman. "Go on!"
+
+"On the third day," continued the captain, "Gurli came in with her
+needlework and remained in the room until the lesson in mathematics
+was over. Supper was not quite as merry as usual, but on the other
+hand, very astronomical. I assisted the old witch with her overshoes,
+a fact which made a great impression on Gurli. When Ottilia said
+good-night, she only offered her cheek to be kissed. On the way home I
+pressed her arm and talked of the sympathy of souls and of the stars
+as the home of the souls. I went to the Grand Hotel, had some punch
+and arrived home at two o'clock. Gurli was still up; I saw it, but I
+went straight to my room, like the bachelor I was, and Gurli did not
+like to follow me and ply me with questions.
+
+"On the following day I gave Ottilia a lesson in astronomy. Gurli
+declared that she was much interested and would like to be present;
+but Ottilia said we were already too far advanced and she would
+instruct her in the rudiments later on. This annoyed Gurli and she
+went away. We had a great deal of sherry for supper. When Ottilia
+thanked me for a jolly evening, I put my arm round her waist and
+kissed her. Gurli grew pale. When I buttoned her overshoes, I ...
+I...."
+
+"Never mind me," said the old lady, "I am an old woman."
+
+He laughed. "All the same, mother, she's not so bad, really she isn't.
+But when I was going to put on my overcoat, I found to my astonishment
+the maid waiting in the hall, ready to accompany Ottilia home. Gurli
+made excuses for me; she said I had caught a cold on the previous
+evening, and that she was afraid the night air might do me harm.
+Ottilia looked self-conscious and left without kissing Gurli.
+
+"I had promised to show Ottilia some astronomical instruments at the
+College at twelve o'clock on the following day. She kept her
+appointment, but she was much depressed. She had been to see Gurli,
+who had treated her very unkindly, so she said. She could not imagine
+why. When I came home to dinner I found a great change in Gurli. She
+was cold and mute as a fish. I could see that she was suffering. Now
+was the time to apply the knife.
+
+"'What did you say to Ottilia?' I commenced. 'She was so unhappy.'"
+
+'What did I say to her? Well, I said to her that she was a flirt.
+That's what I said.'
+
+'How could you say such a thing?' I replied. 'Surely, you're not
+jealous!'
+
+'I! Jealous of her!' she burst out.
+
+'Yes, that's what puzzles me, for I am sure an intelligent and sensible
+person like Ottilia could never have designs on another woman's husband!'
+
+'No,' (she was coming to the point) 'but another woman's husband might
+have designs on her.'
+
+'Huhuhu!' she went for me tooth and nail. I took Ottilia's part; Gurli
+called her an old maid; I continued to champion her. On this afternoon
+Ottilia did not turn up. She wrote a chilly letter, making excuses and
+winding up by saying she could see that she was not wanted. I protested
+and suggested that I should go and fetch her. That made Gurli wild! She
+was sure that I was in love with Ottilia and cared no more for herself.
+She knew that she was only a silly girl, who didn't know anything, was
+no good at anything, and--huhuhu!--could never understand mathematics.
+I sent for a sleigh and we went for a ride. In a hotel, overlooking the
+sea, we drank mulled wine and had an excellent little supper. It was just
+as if we were having our wedding day over again, and then we drove home."
+
+"And then--?" asked the old woman, looking at him over her spectacles.
+
+"And then? H'm! May God forgive me for my sins! I seduced my own little
+wife. What do you say now, granny?"
+
+"I say that you did very well, my boy! And then?"
+
+"And then? Since then everything has been all right, and now we discuss
+the education of the children and the emancipation of women from
+superstition and old-maidishness, from sentimentality and the devil
+and his ablative, but we talk when we are alone together and that is
+the best way of avoiding misunderstandings. Don't you think so, old
+lady?"
+
+"Yes, Willy, dear, and now I shall come and pay you a call."
+
+"Do come! And you will see the dolls dance and the larks and the
+woodpeckers sing and chirrup; you will see a home filled with
+happiness up to the roof, for there is no one there waiting for
+miracles which only happen in fairy tales. You will see a real doll's
+house."
+
+
+
+
+PHOENIX
+
+
+The wild strawberries were getting ripe when he met her for the first
+time at the vicarage. He had met many girls before, but when he saw
+_her_ he knew; this was she! But he did not dare to tell her so, and
+she only teased him for he was still at school.
+
+He was an undergraduate when he met her for the second time. And as he
+put his arms round her and kissed her, he saw showers of rockets, heard
+the ringing of bells and bugle calls, and felt the earth trembling under
+his feet.
+
+She was a woman at the age of fourteen. Her young bosom seemed to be
+waiting for hungry little mouths and eager baby fists. With her firm
+and elastic step, her round and swelling hips, she looked fit to bear
+at any moment a baby under her heart. Her hair was of a pale gold,
+like clarified honey, and surrounded her face like an aureole; her
+eyes were two flames and her skin was as soft as a glove.
+
+They were engaged to be married and billed and cooed in the wood like
+the birds in the garden under the lime trees; life lay before them
+like a sunny meadow which the scythe had not yet touched. But he had
+to pass his examinations in mining first, and that would take
+him,--including the journey abroad--ten years. Ten years!
+
+He returned to the University. In the summer he came back to the
+vicarage and found her every bit as beautiful. Three summers he
+came--and the fourth time she was pale. There were tiny red lines in
+the corners of her nose and her shoulders drooped a little. When the
+summer returned for the sixth time, she was taking iron. In the
+seventh she went to a watering-place. In the eighth she suffered from
+tooth-ache and her nerves were out of order. Her hair had lost its
+gloss, her voice had grown shrill, her nose was covered with little
+black specks; she had lost her figure, dragged her feet, and her
+cheeks were hollow. In the winter she had an attack of nervous fever,
+and her hair had to be cut off. When it grew again, it was a dull
+brown. He had fallen in love with a golden-haired girl of
+fourteen--brunettes did not attract him--and he married a woman of
+twenty-four, with dull brown hair, who refused to wear her dresses open
+at the throat.
+
+But in spite of all this he loved her. His love was less passionate
+than it had been; it had become calm and steadfast. And there was
+nothing in the little mining-town which could disturb their happiness.
+
+She bore him two boys, but he was always wishing for a girl. And at
+last a fair-haired baby girl arrived.
+
+She was the apple of his eye, and as she grew up she resembled her
+mother more and more. When she was eight years old, she was just what
+her mother had been. And the father devoted all his spare time to his
+little daughter.
+
+The housework had coarsened the mother's hands. Her nose had lost its
+shape and her temples had fallen in. Constant stooping over the kitchen
+range had made her a little round-shouldered. Father and mother met only
+at meals and at night. They did not complain, but things had changed.
+
+But the daughter was the father's delight. It was almost as if he were
+in love with her. He saw in her the re-incarnation of her mother, his
+first impression of her, as beautiful as it had been fleeting. He was
+almost self-conscious in her company and never went into her room when
+she was dressing. He worshipped her.
+
+But one morning the child remained in bed and refused to get up. Mama
+put it down to laziness, but papa sent for the doctor. The shadow of
+the angel of death lay over the house: the child was suffering from
+diphtheria. Either father or mother must take the other children away.
+He refused. The mother took them to a little house in one of the suburbs
+and the father remained at home to nurse the invalid. There she lay!
+The house was disinfected with sulphur which turned the gilded picture
+frames black and tarnished the silver on the dressing-table. He walked
+through the empty rooms in silent anguish, and at night, alone in his
+big bed, he felt like a widower. He bought toys for the little girl,
+and she smiled at him as he sat on the edge of the bed trying to amuse
+her with a Punch and Judy show, and asked after mama and her little
+brothers. And the father had to go and stand in the street before the
+house in the suburbs, and nod to his wife who was looking at him from
+the window, and blow kisses to the children. And his wife signalled to
+him with sheets of blue and red paper.
+
+But a day came when the little girl took no more pleasure in Punch and
+Judy, and ceased smiling; and ceased talking too, for Death had
+stretched out his long bony arm and suffocated her. It had been a hard
+struggle.
+
+Then the mother returned, full of remorse because she had deserted her
+little daughter. There was great misery in the home, and great
+wretchedness. When the doctor wanted to make a post mortem examination,
+the father objected. No knife should touch her, for she was not dead to
+him; but his resistance was overborne. Then he flew into a passion and
+tried to kick and bite the doctor.
+
+When they had bedded her into the earth, he built a monument over her
+grave, and for a whole year he visited it every day. In the second
+year he did not go quite so often. His work was heavy and he had little
+spare time. He began to feel the burden of the years; his step was less
+elastic; his wound was healing. Sometimes he felt ashamed when he
+realised that he was mourning less and less for his child as time went
+by; and finally he forgot all about it.
+
+Two more girls were born to him, but it was not the same thing; the
+void left by the one who had passed away could never be filled.
+
+Life was a hard struggle. The young wife who had once been like--like
+no other woman on earth, had gradually lost her glamour; the gilding
+had worn off the home which had once been so bright and beautiful. The
+children had bruised and dented their mother's wedding presents, spoiled
+the beds and kicked the legs of the furniture. The stuffing of the sofa
+was plainly visible here and there, and the piano had not been opened
+for years. The noise made by the children had drowned the music and the
+voices had become harsh. The words of endearment had been cast off with
+the baby clothes, caresses had deteriorated into a sort of massage. They
+were growing old and weary. Papa was no longer on his knees before mama,
+he sat in his shabby armchair and asked her for a match when he wanted
+to light his pipe. Yes, they were growing old.
+
+When papa had reached his fiftieth year, mama died. Then the past
+awoke and knocked at his heart. When her broken body, which the last
+agony had robbed of its few remaining charms, had been laid in its
+grave, the picture of his fourteen-year-old sweetheart arose in his
+memory. It was for her, whom he had lost so long ago that he mourned
+now, and with his yearning for her came remorse. But he had never been
+unkind to the old mama; he had been faithful to the fourteen-year-old
+vicar's daughter whom he had worshipped on his knees but had never led
+to the altar, for he had married an anaemic young woman of twenty-four.
+If he were to be quite candid, he would have to confess that it was she
+for whom he mourned; it was true, he also missed the good cooking and
+unremitting care of the old mama, but that was a different thing.
+
+He was on more intimate terms with his children, now; some of them had
+left the old nest, but others were still at home.
+
+When he had bored his friends for a whole year with anecdotes of the
+deceased, an extraordinary coincidence happened. He met a young girl
+of eighteen, with fair hair, and a striking resemblance to his late
+wife, as she had been at fourteen. He saw in this coincidence the
+finger of a bountiful providence, willing to bestow on him at last the
+first one, the well-beloved. He fell in love with her because she
+resembled the first one. And he married her. He had got her at last.
+
+But his children, especially the girls, resented his second marriage.
+They found the relationship between their father and step-mother
+improper; in their opinion he had been unfaithful to their mother. And
+they left his house and went out into the world.
+
+He was happy! And his pride in his young wife exceeded even his
+happiness.
+
+"Only the aftermath!" said his old friends.
+
+When a year had gone by, the young wife presented him with a baby.
+Papa, of course, was no longer used to a baby's crying, and wanted his
+night's rest. He insisted on a separate bed-room for himself, heedless
+of his wife's tears; really, women were a nuisance sometimes. And,
+moreover, she was jealous of his first wife. He had been fool enough
+to tell her of the extraordinary likeness which existed between the
+two and had let her read his first wife's love-letters. She brooded
+over these facts now that he neglected her. She realised that she had
+inherited all the first one's pet names, that she was only her
+understudy, as it were. It irritated her and the attempt to win him
+for herself led her into all sorts of mischief. But she only succeeded
+in boring him, and in silently comparing the two women, his verdict
+was entirely in favour of the first one. She had been so much more
+gentle than the second who exasperated him. The longing for his
+children, whom he had driven from their home increased his regret, and
+his sleep was disturbed by bad dreams for he was haunted by the idea
+that he had been unfaithful to his first wife.
+
+His home was no longer a happy one. He had done a deed, which he would
+much better have left undone.
+
+He began to spend a good deal of time at his club. But now his wife
+was furious. He had deceived her. He was an old man and he had better
+look out! An old man who left his young wife so much alone ran a certain
+risk. He might regret it some day!
+
+"Old? She called him old? He would show her that he was not old!"
+
+They shared the same room again. But now matters were seven times
+worse. He did not want to be bothered with the baby at night. The
+proper place for babies was the nursery. No! he hadn't thought so in
+the case of the first wife.
+
+He had to submit to the torture.
+
+Twice he had believed in the miracle of Phoenix rising from the ashes
+of his fourteen year old love, first in his daughter, then in his
+second wife. But in his memory lived the first one only, the little
+one from the vicarage, whom he had met when the wild strawberries were
+ripe, and kissed under the lime trees in the wood, but whom he had
+never married.
+
+But now, as his sun was setting and his days grew short, he saw in his
+dark hours only the picture of the old mama, who had been kind to him
+and his children, who had never scolded, who was plain, who cooked the
+meals and patched the little boys' knickers and the skirts of the little
+girls. His flush of victory being over, he was able to see facts clearly.
+He wondered whether it was not, after all, the old mama who had been the
+real true Phoenix, rising, calm and beautiful, from the ashes of the
+fourteen year old bird of paradise, laying its eggs, plucking the
+feathers from its breast to line the nest for the young ones, and
+nourishing them with its life-blood until it died.
+
+He wondered ... but when at last he laid his weary head on the pillow,
+never again to lift it up, he was convinced that it was so.
+
+
+
+
+ROMEO AND JULIA
+
+
+One evening the husband came home with a roll of music under his arm
+and said to his wife:
+
+"Let us play duets after supper!"
+
+"What have you got there?" asked his wife.
+
+"Romeo and Julia, arranged for the piano. Do you know it?"
+
+"Yes, of course I do," she replied, "but I don't remember ever having
+seen it on the stage."
+
+"Oh! It's splendid! To me it is like a dream of my youth, but I've
+only heard it once, and that was about twenty years ago."
+
+After supper, when the children had been put to bed and the house lay
+silent, the husband lighted the candles on the piano. He looked at the
+lithographed title-page and read the title: Romeo and Julia.
+
+"This is Gounod's most beautiful composition," he said, "and I don't
+believe that it will be too difficult for us."
+
+As usual his wife undertook to play the treble and they began. D major,
+common time, _allegro giusto_.
+
+"It is beautiful, isn't it?" asked the husband, when they had finished
+the overture.
+
+"Y--es," admitted the wife, reluctantly.
+
+"Now the martial music," said the husband; "it is exceptionally fine.
+I can remember the splendid choruses at the Royal Theatre."
+
+They played a march.
+
+"Well, wasn't I right?" asked the husband, triumphantly, as if he had
+composed "Romeo and Julia" himself.
+
+"I don't know; it rather sounds like a brass band," answered the wife.
+
+The husband's honour and good taste were involved; he looked for the
+Moonshine Aria in the fourth act. After a little searching he came
+across an aria for soprano. That must be it.
+
+And he began again.
+
+Tram-tramtram, tram-tramtram, went the bass; it was very easy to play.
+
+"Do you know," said his wife, when it was over, "I don't think very
+much of it."
+
+The husband, quite depressed, admitted that it reminded him of a barrel
+organ.
+
+"I thought so all along," confessed the wife.
+
+"And I find it antiquated, too. I am surprised that Gounod should be
+out of date, already," he added dejectedly. "Would you like to go on
+playing? Let's try the Cavatina and the Trio; I particularly remember
+the soprano; she was divine."
+
+When they stopped playing, the husband looked crestfallen and put the
+music away, as if he wanted to shut the door on the past.
+
+"Let's have a glass of beer," he said. They sat down at the table and
+had a glass of beer.
+
+"It's extraordinary," he began, after a little while, "I never
+realised before that we've grown old, for we really must have vied
+with Romeo and Julia as to who should age faster. It's twenty years
+ago since I heard the opera for the first time. I was a newly fledged
+undergraduate then, I had many friends and the future smiled at me. I
+was immensely proud of the first down on my upper lip and my little
+college cap, and I remember as if it were to-day, the evening when
+Fritz, Phil and myself went to hear this opera. We had heard 'Faust'
+some years before and were great admirers of Gounod's genius. But
+Romeo beat all our expectations. The music roused our wildest
+enthusiasm. Now both my friends are dead. Fritz, who was ambitious,
+was a private secretary when he died, Phil a medical student; I who
+aspired to the position of a minister of state have to content myself
+with that of a regimental judge. The years have passed by quickly and
+imperceptibly. Of course I have noticed that the lines under my eyes
+have grown deeper and that my hair has turned grey at the temples, but
+I should never have thought that we had travelled so far on the road
+to the grave."
+
+"Yes, my dear, we've grown old; our children could teach us that. And
+you must see it in me too, although you don't say anything."
+
+"How can you say that!"
+
+"Oh! I know only too well, my dear," continued the wife, sadly; "I
+know that I am beginning to lose my good looks, that my hair is
+growing thin, that I shall soon lose my front teeth...."
+
+"Just consider how quickly everything passes away"--interrupted her
+husband. "It seems to me that one grows old much more rapidly now-a-days,
+than one used to do. In my father's house Haydn and Mozart were played
+a great deal, although they were dead long before he was born. And
+now--now Gounod has grown old-fashioned already! How distressing it is
+to meet again the ideals of one's youth under these altered
+circumstances! And how horrible it is to feel old age approaching!"
+
+He got up and sat down again at the piano; he took the music and turned
+over the pages as if he were looking for keepsakes, locks of hair,
+dried flowers and ends of ribbon in the drawer of a writing-table.
+His eyes were riveted on the black notes which looked like little birds
+climbing up and down a wire fencing; but where were the spring songs,
+the passionate protestations, the jubilant avowals of the rosy days of
+first love? The notes stared back at him like strangers; as if the
+memory of life's spring-time were grown over with weeds.
+
+Yes, that was it; the strings were covered with dust, the sounding board
+was dried up, the felt worn away.
+
+A heavy sigh echoed through the room, heavy as if it came from a hollow
+chest, and then silence fell.
+
+"But all the same, it is strange," the husband said suddenly, "that
+the glorious prologue is missing in this arrangement. I remember
+distinctly that there was a prologue with an accompaniment of harps
+and a chorus which went like this."
+
+He softly hummed the tune, which bubbled up like a stream in a
+mountain glen; note succeeded note, his face cleared, his lips smiled,
+the lines disappeared, his fingers touched the keys, and drew from
+them melodies, powerful, caressing and full of eternal youth, while
+with a strong and ringing voice he sang the part of the bass.
+
+His wife started from her melancholy reverie and listened with tears
+in her eyes.
+
+"What are you singing?" she asked, full of amazement.
+
+"Romeo and Julia! Our Romeo and our Julia!"
+
+He jumped up from the music stool and pushed the music towards his
+astonished wife.
+
+"Look! This was the Romeo of our uncles and aunts, this was--read
+it--Bellini! Oh! We are not old, after all!"
+
+The wife looked at the thick, glossy hair of her husband, his smooth
+brow and flashing eyes, with joy.
+
+"And you? You look like a young girl. We have allowed old Bellini to
+make fools of us. I felt that something was wrong."
+
+"No, darling, I thought so first."
+
+"Probably you did; that is because you are younger than I am."
+
+"No, you...."
+
+And husband and wife, like a couple of children, laughingly quarrel
+over the question of which of them is the elder of the two, and cannot
+understand how they could have discovered lines and grey hairs where
+there are none.
+
+
+
+
+PROLIFICACY
+
+
+He was a supernumerary at the Board of Trade and drew a salary of
+twelve hundred crowns. He had married a young girl without a penny;
+for love, as he himself said, to be no longer compelled to go to
+dances and run about the streets, as his friends maintained. But be
+that as it may, the life of the newly-wedded couple was happy enough
+to begin with.
+
+"How cheaply married people can live," he said one day, after the
+wedding was a thing of the past. The same sum which had been barely
+enough to cover the wants of the bachelor now sufficed for husband and
+wife. Really, marriage was an excellent institution. One had all one's
+requirements within one's four walls: club, cafe, everything; no more
+bills of fare, no tips, no inquisitive porter watching one as one went
+out with one's wife in the morning.
+
+Life smiled at him, his strength increased and he worked for two.
+Never in all his life had he felt so full of overflowing energy; he
+jumped out of bed as soon as he woke up in the morning, buoyantly, and
+in the highest spirits, he was rejuvenated.
+
+When two months had elapsed, long before his new circumstances had
+begun to pall, his wife whispered a certain piece of information into
+his ear. New joys! New cares! But cares so pleasant to bear! It was
+necessary, however, to increase their income at once, so as to receive
+the unknown world-citizen in a manner befitting his dignity. He managed
+to obtain an order for a translation.
+
+Baby-clothes lay scattered about all over the furniture, a cradle
+stood waiting in the hall, and at last a splendid boy arrived in this
+world of sorrows.
+
+The father was delighted. And yet he could not help a vague feeling of
+uneasiness whenever he thought of the future. Income and expenditure
+did not balance. Nothing remained but to reduce his dress allowance.
+
+His frock coat began to look threadbare at the seams; his shirt front
+was hidden underneath a large tie, his trousers were frayed. It was an
+undeniable fact that the porters at the office looked down on him on
+account of his shabbiness.
+
+In addition to this he was compelled to lengthen his working day.
+
+"It must be the first and last," he said. But how was it to be done?
+
+He was at a loss to know.
+
+Three months later his wife prepared him in carefully chosen words
+that his paternal joys would soon be doubled. It would not be true to
+say that he rejoiced greatly at the news. But there was no alternative
+now; he must travel along the road he had chosen, even if married life
+should prove to be anything but cheap.
+
+"It's true," he thought, his face brightening, "the younger one will
+inherit the baby-clothes of his elder brother. This will save a good
+deal of expense, and there will be food enough for them--I shall be
+able to feed them just as well as others."
+
+And the second baby was born.
+
+"You are going it," said a friend of his, who was a married man himself,
+but father of one child only.
+
+"What is a man to do?"
+
+"Use his common-sense."
+
+"Use his common-sense? But, my dear fellow, a man gets married in
+order to ... I mean to say, not only in order to ... but yet in order
+to.... Well, anyhow, we are married and that settles the matter."
+
+"Not at all. Let me tell you something, my dear boy; if you are at all
+hoping for promotion it is absolutely necessary that you should wear
+clean linen, trousers which are not frayed at the bottom, and a hat
+which is not of a rusty brown."
+
+And the sensible man whispered sensible words into his ear. As the
+result, the poor husband was put on short commons in the midst of
+plenty.
+
+But now his troubles began.
+
+To start with his nerves went to pieces, he suffered from insomnia and
+did his work badly. He consulted a doctor. The prescription cost him
+three crowns; and such a prescription! He was to stop working; he had
+worked too hard, his brain was overtaxed. To stop work would mean
+starvation for all of them, and to work spelt death, too!
+
+He went on working.
+
+One day, as he was sitting at his desk, stooping over endless rows of
+figures, he had an attack of faintness, slipped off his chair and fell
+to the ground.
+
+A visit to a specialist--eighteen crowns. A new prescription; he must
+ask for sick leave at once, take riding exercise every morning and
+have steak and a glass of port for breakfast.
+
+Riding exercise and port!
+
+But the worst feature of the whole business was a feeling of alienation
+from his wife which had sprung up in his heart--he did not know whence
+it came. He was afraid to go near her and at the same time he longed for
+her presence. He loved her, loved her still, but a certain bitterness
+was mingled with his love.
+
+"You are growing thin," said a friend.
+
+"Yes, I believe I've grown thinner," said the poor husband.
+
+"You are playing a dangerous game, old boy!"
+
+"I don't know what you mean!"
+
+"A married man in half mourning! Take care, my friend!"
+
+"I really don't know what you're driving at.".
+
+"It's impossible to go against the wind for any length of time. Set
+all sails and run, old chap, and you will see that everything will
+come right. Believe me, I know what I'm talking about. You understand
+me."
+
+He took no notice of the advice for a time, fully aware of the fact
+that a man's income does not increase in proportion to his family; at
+the same time he had no longer any doubt about the cause of his
+malady.
+
+It was summer again. The family had gone into the country. On a
+beautiful evening husband and wife were strolling along the steep
+shore, in the shade of the alder trees, resplendent in their young
+green. They sat down on the turf, silent and depressed. He was morose
+and disheartened; gloomy thoughts revolved behind his aching brow.
+Life seemed a great chasm which had opened to engulf all he loved.
+
+They talked of the probable loss of his appointment; his chief had
+been annoyed at his second application for sick leave. He complained
+of the conduct of his colleagues, he felt himself deserted by everyone;
+but the fact which hurt him more than anything else was the knowledge
+that she, too, had grown tired of him.
+
+"Oh! but she hadn't! She loved him every bit as much as she did in
+those happy days when they were first engaged. How could he doubt it?"
+
+"No, he didn't doubt it; but he had suffered so much, he wasn't master
+of his own thoughts."
+
+He pressed his burning cheek against hers, put his arm round her and
+covered her eyes with passionate kisses.
+
+The gnats danced their nuptial dance above the birch tree without a
+thought of the thousands of young ones which their ecstasy would call
+into being; the carp laid their eggs in the reed grass, careless of
+the millions of their kind to which they gave birth; the swallow made
+love in broad daylight, not in the least afraid of the consequences of
+their irregular liaisons.
+
+All of a sudden he sprang to his feet and stretched himself like a
+sleeper awakening from a long sleep, which had been haunted by evil
+dreams, he drank in the balmy air in deep draughts.
+
+"What's the matter?" whispered his wife, while a crimson blush spread
+over her face.
+
+"I don't know. All I know is that I live, that I breathe again."
+
+And radiant, with laughing face and shining eyes, he held out his arms
+to her, picked her up as if she were a baby and pressed his lips to
+her forehead. The muscles of his legs swelled until they looked like
+the muscles of the leg of an antique god, he held his body erect like
+a young tree and intoxicated with strength and happiness, he carried
+his beloved burden as far as the footpath where he put her down.
+
+"You will strain yourself, sweetheart," she said, making a vain
+attempt to free herself from his encircling arms.
+
+"Never, you darling! I could carry you to the end of the earth, and I
+shall carry you, all of you, no matter how many you are now, or how
+many you may yet become."
+
+And they returned home, arm in arm, their hearts singing with
+gladness.
+
+"If the worst comes to the worst, sweet love, one must admit that it
+is very easy to jump that abyss which separates body and soul!"
+
+"What a thing to say!"
+
+"If I had only realised it before, I should have been less unhappy.
+Oh! those idealists!"
+
+And they entered their cottage.
+
+The good old times had returned and had, apparently, come to stay. The
+husband went to work to his office as before. They lived again through
+love's spring time. No doctor was required and the high spirits never
+flagged.
+
+After the third christening, however, he came to the conclusion that
+matters were serious and started playing his old game with the
+inevitable results: doctor, sick-leave, riding-exercise, port! But
+there must be an end of it, at all costs. Every time the balance-sheet
+showed a deficit.
+
+But when, finally, his whole nervous system went out of joint, he let
+nature have her own way. Immediately expenses went up and he was beset
+with difficulties.
+
+He was not a poor man, it is true, but on the other hand he was not
+blest with too many of this world's riches.
+
+"To tell you the truth, old girl," he said to his wife, "it will be
+the same old story over again."
+
+"I am afraid it will, my dear," replied the poor woman, who, in
+addition to her duties as a mother, had to do the whole work of the
+house now.
+
+After the birth of her fourth child, the work grew too hard for her
+and a nursemaid had to be engaged.
+
+"Now it must stop," avowed the disconsolate husband. "This must be the
+last."
+
+Poverty looked in at the door. The foundations on which the house was
+built were tottering.
+
+And thus, at the age of thirty, in the very prime of their life, the
+young husband and wife found themselves condemned to celibacy. He grew
+moody, his complexion became grey and his eyes lost their lustre. Her
+rich beauty faded, her fine figure wasted away, and she suffered all
+the sorrows of a mother who sees her children growing up in poverty
+and rags.
+
+One day, as she was standing in the kitchen, frying herrings, a
+neighbour called in for a friendly chat.
+
+"How are you?" she began.
+
+"Thank you, I'm not up to very much. How are you?"
+
+"Oh! I'm not at all well. Married life is a misery if one has to be
+constantly on one's guard."
+
+"Do you think you are the only one?"
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Do you know what my husband said to me the other day? One ought to
+spare the draught cattle! And I suffer under it all, I can tell you.
+No, there's no happiness in marriage. Either husband or wife is bound
+to suffer. It's one or the other!"
+
+"Or both!"
+
+"But what about the men of science who grow fat at the expense of the
+Government?"
+
+"They have to think of so many things, and moreover, it is improper to
+write about such problems; they must not be discussed openly."
+
+"But that would be the first necessity!" And the two women fell to
+discussing their bitter experiences.
+
+In the following summer they were compelled to remain in town; they
+were living in a basement with a view of the gutter, the smell of
+which was so objectionable that it was impossible to keep the windows
+open.
+
+The wife did needlework in the same room in which the children were
+playing; the husband, who had lost his appointment on account of his
+extreme shabbiness, was copying a manuscript in the adjoining room,
+and grumbling at the children's noise. Hard words were bandied through
+the open door.
+
+It was Whitsuntide. In the afternoon the husband was lying on the
+ragged leather sofa, gazing at a window on the other side of the
+street. He was watching a woman of evil reputation who was dressing
+for her evening stroll. A spray of lilac and two oranges were lying by
+the side of her looking-glass.
+
+She was fastening her dress without taking the least notice of his
+inquisitive glances.
+
+"She's not having a bad time," mused the celibate, suddenly kindled
+into passion. "One lives but once in this world, and one must live
+one's life, happen what will!"
+
+His wife entered the room and caught sight of the object of his
+scrutiny. Her eyes blazed; the last feeble sparks of her dead love
+glowed under the ashes and revealed themselves in a temporary flash
+of jealousy.
+
+"Hadn't we better take the children to the Zoo?" she asked.
+
+"To make a public show of our misery? No, thank you!"
+
+"But it's so hot in here. I shall have to pull down the blinds."
+
+"You had better open a window!"
+
+He divined his wife's thoughts and rose to do it himself. Out there,
+on the edge of the pavement, his four little ones were sitting, in
+close proximity of the waste pipes. Their feet were in the dry gutter,
+and they were playing with orange peels which they had found in the
+sweepings of the road. The sight stabbed his heart, and he felt a lump
+rising in his throat. But poverty had so blunted his feelings that he
+remained standing at the window with his arms crossed.
+
+All at once two filthy streams gushed from the waste pipes, inundated
+the gutter and saturated the feet of the children who screamed, half
+suffocated by the stench.
+
+"Get the children ready as quickly as you can," he called, giving way
+at the heart-rending scene.
+
+The father pushed the perambulator with the baby, the other children
+clung to the hands and skirts of the mother.
+
+They arrived at the cemetery with its dark-stemmed lime-trees, their
+usual place of refuge; here the trees grew luxuriantly, as if the soil
+were enriched by the bodies which lay buried underneath it.
+
+The bells were ringing for evening prayers. The inmates of the
+poorhouse flocked to the church and sat down in the pews left vacant
+by their wealthy owners, who had attended to their souls at the
+principal service of the day, and were now driving in their carriages
+to the Royal Deer Park.
+
+The children climbed about the shallow graves, most of which were
+decorated with armorial bearings and inscriptions.
+
+Husband and wife sat down on a seat and placed the perambulator, in
+which the baby lay sucking at its bottle, by their side. Two puppies
+were disporting themselves on a grave close by, half hidden by the
+high grass.
+
+A young and well dressed couple, leading by the hand a little girl
+clothed in silk and velvet, passed the seat on which they sat. The
+poor copyist raised his eyes to the young dandy and recognised a
+former colleague from the Board of Trade who, however, did not seem to
+see him. A feeling of bitter envy seized him with such intensity that
+he felt more humiliated by this "ignoble sentiment" than by his
+deplorable condition. Was he angry with the other man because he
+filled a position which he himself had coveted? Surely not. But
+of a sense of justice, and his suffering was all the deeper because
+it was shared by the whole class of the disinherited. He was convinced
+that the inmates of the poorhouse, bowed down under the yoke of public
+charity, envied his wife; and he was quite sure that many of the
+aristocrats who slept all around him in their graves, under their coats
+of arms, would have envied him his children if it had been their lot to
+die without leaving an heir to their estates. Certainly, nobody under
+the sun enjoyed complete happiness, but why did the plums always fall
+to the lot of those who were already sitting in the lap of luxury? And
+how was it that the prizes always fell to the organisers of the great
+lottery? The disinherited had to be content with the mass said at
+evening prayers; to their share fell morality and those virtues which
+the others despised and of which they had no need because the gates of
+heaven opened readily enough to their wealth. But what about the good
+and just God who had distributed His gifts so unevenly? It would be
+better, indeed, to live one's life without this unjust God, who had,
+moreover, candidly admitted that the "wind blew where it listed"; had
+He not himself confessed, in these words, that He did not interfere in
+the concerns of man? But failing the church, where should we look for
+comfort? And yet, why ask for comfort? Wouldn't it be far better to
+strive to make such arrangements that no comfort was needed? Wouldn't
+it?
+
+His speculations were interrupted by his eldest daughter who asked him
+for a leaf of the lime-tree, which she wanted for a sunshade for her
+doll. He stepped on the seat and raised his hand to break off a little
+twig, when a constable appeared and rudely ordered him not to touch
+the trees. A fresh humiliation. At the same time the constable
+requested him not to allow his children to play on the graves, which
+was against the regulations.
+
+"We'd better go home," said the distressed father. "How carefully they
+guard the interests of the dead, and how indifferent they are to the
+interests of the living."
+
+And they returned home.
+
+He sat down and began to work. He had to copy the manuscript of an
+academical treatise on over-population.
+
+The subject interested him and he read the contents of the whole book.
+
+The young author who belonged to what was called the ethical school,
+was preaching against vice.
+
+"What vice?" mused the copyist. "That which is responsible for our
+existence? Which the priest orders us to indulge in at every wedding
+when he says: Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth?"
+
+The manuscript ran on: Propagation, without holy matrimony, is a
+destructive vice, because the fate of the children, who do not receive
+proper care and nursing, is a sad one. In the case of married couples,
+on the other hand, it becomes a sacred duty to indulge one's desires.
+This is proved, among other things, by the fact that the law protects
+even the female ovum, and it is right that it should be so.
+
+"Consequently," thought the copyist, "there is a providence for
+legitimate children, but not for illegitimate ones Oh! this young
+philosopher! And the law which protects the female ovum! What
+business, then, have those microscopic things to detach themselves at
+every change of the moon? Those sacred objects ought to be most
+carefully guarded by the police!"
+
+All these futilities he had to copy in his best handwriting.
+
+They overflowed with morality, but contained not a single word of
+enlightenment.
+
+The moral or rather the immoral gist of the whole argument was: There
+is a God who feeds and clothes all children born in wedlock; a God in
+His heaven, probably, but what about the earth? Certainly, it was said
+that He came to earth once and allowed himself to be crucified, after
+vainly trying to establish something like order in the confused
+affairs of mankind; He did not succeed.
+
+The philosopher wound up by screaming himself hoarse in trying to
+convince his audience that the abundant supply of wheat was an
+irrefutable proof that the problem of over-population did not exist;
+that the doctrine of Malthus was not only false, but criminal,
+socially as well as morally.
+
+And the poor father of a family who had not tasted wheaten bread for
+years, laid down the manuscript and urged his little ones to fill
+themselves with gruel made of rye flour and bluish milk, a dish which
+satisfied their craving, but contained no nourishment.
+
+He was wretched, not because he considered water gruel objectionable,
+but because he had lost his precious sense of humour, that magician
+who can transform the dark rye into golden wheat; almighty love,
+emptying his horn of plenty over his poor home, had vanished. The
+children had become burdens, and the once beloved wife a secret enemy
+despised and despising him.
+
+And the cause of all this unhappiness? The want of bread! And yet the
+large store houses of the new world were breaking down under the weight
+of the over-abundant supply of wheat. What a world of contradictions!
+The manner in which bread was distributed must be at fault.
+
+Science, which has replaced religion, has no answer to give; it merely
+states facts and allows the children to die of hunger and the parents
+of thirst.
+
+
+
+
+AUTUMN
+
+
+They had been married for ten years. Happily? Well, as happily as
+circumstances permitted. They had been running in double harness, like
+two young oxen of equal strength, each of which is conscientiously
+doing his own share.
+
+During the first year of their marriage they buried many illusions and
+realised that marriage was not perfect bliss. In the second year the
+babies began to arrive, and the daily toil left them no time for
+brooding.
+
+He was very domesticated, perhaps too much so; his family was his
+world, the centre and pivot of which he was. The children were the
+radii. His wife attempted to be a centre, too, but never in the middle
+of the circle, for that was exclusively occupied by him, and therefore
+the radii fell now on the top of one another, now far apart, and their
+life lacked harmony.
+
+In the tenth year of their marriage he obtained the post of secretary
+to the Board of Prisons, and in that capacity he was obliged to travel
+about the country. This interfered seriously with his daily routine;
+the thought of leaving his world for a whole month upset him. He
+wondered whom he would miss more, his wife or his children, and he was
+sure he would miss them both.
+
+On the eve of his departure he sat in the corner of the sofa and
+watched his portmanteau being packed. His wife was kneeling on the
+She brushed his black suit and folded it carefully, so that it should
+take up as little space as possible. He had no idea how to do these
+things.
+
+She had never looked upon herself as his housekeeper, hardly as his
+wife, she was above all things mother: a mother to the children, a
+mother to him. She darned his socks without the slightest feeling of
+degradation, and asked for no thanks. She never even considered him
+indebted to her for it, for did he not give her and the children new
+stockings whenever they wanted them, and a great many other things
+into the bargain? But for him, she would have to go out and earn her
+own living, and the children would be left alone all day.
+
+He sat in the sofa corner and looked at her. Now that the parting was
+imminent, he began to feel premature little twinges of longing. He
+gazed at her figure. Her shoulders were a little rounded; much bending
+over the cradle, ironing board and kitchen range had robbed her back
+of its straightness. He, too, stooped a little, the result of his toil
+at the writing-table, and he was obliged to wear spectacles. But at
+the moment he really was not thinking of himself. He noticed that her
+plaits were thinner than they had been and that a faint suggestion of
+silver lay on her hair. Had she sacrificed her beauty to him, to him
+alone? No, surely not to him, but to the little community which they
+formed; for, after all, she had also worked for herself. His hair,
+too, had grown thin in the struggle to provide for all of them. He
+might have retained his youth a little longer, if there hadn't been so
+many mouths to fill, if he had remained a bachelor; but he didn't
+regret his marriage for one second.
+
+"It will be a good thing for you to get away for a bit," said his
+wife; "you have been too much at home."
+
+"I suppose you are glad to get rid of me," he replied, not without
+bitterness; "but I--I shall miss you very much."
+
+"You are like a cat, you'll miss your cosy fireside, but not me; you
+know you won't."
+
+"And the kiddies?"
+
+"Oh, yes! I daresay you'll miss them when you are away, for all your
+scolding when you are with them. No, no, I don't mean that you are
+unkind to them, but you do grumble a lot! All the same I won't be
+unjust, and I know that you love them."
+
+At supper he was very tired and depressed. He didn't read the evening
+paper, he wanted to talk to his wife. But she was too busy to pay much
+attention to him; she had no time to waste; moreover, her ten years'
+campaign in kitchen and nursery had taught her self-control.
+
+He felt more sentimental than he cared to show, and the topsy-turvydom
+of the room made him fidgety. Scraps of his daily life lay scattered
+all over chairs and chests of drawers; his black portmanteau yawned
+wide-open like a coffin; his white linen was carefully laid on the top
+of his black suit, which showed slight traces of wear and tear at the
+knees and elbows. It seemed to him that he himself was lying there,
+wearing a white shirt with a starched front. Presently they would
+close the coffin and carry it away.
+
+On the following morning--it was in August--he rose early and dressed
+hurriedly. His nerves were unstrung. He went into the nursery and
+kissed the children who stared at him with sleepy eyes. Then he kissed
+his wife, got into a cab, and told the driver to drive him to the
+station.
+
+The journey, which he made in the company of his Board, did him good;
+it really was a good thing for him to get out of his groove;
+domesticity lay behind him like a stuffy bedroom, and on the arrival
+of the train at Linkoping he was in high spirits.
+
+An excellent dinner had been ordered at the best hotel and the
+remainder of the day was spent in eating it. They drank the health of
+the Lord Lieutenant; no one thought of the prisoners on whose behalf
+the journey had been undertaken.
+
+Dinner over, he had to face a lonely evening in his solitary room. A
+bed, two chairs, a table, a washing-stand and a wax candle, which
+threw its dim light on bare walls. He couldn't suppress a feeling of
+nervousness. He missed all his little comforts,--slippers,
+dressing-gown, pipe rack and writing table; all the little details
+which played an important part in his daily life. And the kiddies? And
+his wife? What were they doing? Were they all right? He became
+restless and depressed. When he wanted to wind up his watch, he found
+that he had left his watch-key at home. It was hanging on the
+watch-stand which his wife had given him before they were married. He
+went to bed and lit a cigar. Then he wanted a book out of his
+portmanteau and he had to get up again. Everything was packed so
+beautifully, it was a pity to disturb it. In looking for the book, he
+came across his slippers. She had forgotten nothing. Then he found the
+book. But he couldn't read. He lay in bed and thought of the past, of
+his wife, as she had been ten years ago. He saw her as she had been
+then; the picture of her, as she now was, disappeared in the blue-grey
+clouds of smoke which rose in rings and wreaths to the rain-stained
+ceiling. An infinite yearning came over him. Every harsh word he had
+ever spoken to her now grated on his ears; he thought remorsefully of
+every hour of anguish he had caused her. At last he fell asleep.
+
+The following day brought much work and another banquet with a toast
+to the Prison-Governor--the prisoners were still unremembered. In the
+evening solitude, emptiness, coldness. He felt a pressing need to talk
+to her. He fetched some notepaper and sat down to write. But at the
+very outset he was confronted by a difficulty. How was he to address
+her? Whenever he had sent her a few lines to say that he would not be
+home for dinner, he had always called her "Dear Mother." But now he
+was not going to write to the mother, but to his fiancee, to his
+beloved one. At last he made up his mind and commenced his letter with
+"My Darling Lily," as he had done in the old days. At first he wrote
+slowly and with difficulty, for so many beautiful words and phrases
+seemed to have disappeared from the clumsy, dry language of every-day
+life; but as he warmed to his work, they awakened in his memory like
+forgotten melodies, valse tunes, fragments of poems, elder-blossoms,
+and swallows, sunsets on a mirror-like sea. All his memories of the
+springtime of life came dancing along in clouds of gossamer and
+enveloped her. He drew a cross at the bottom of the page, as lovers
+do, and by the side of it he wrote the words: "Kiss here."
+
+When the letter was finished and he read it through, his cheeks burnt
+and he became self-conscious. He couldn't account for the reason.
+
+But somehow he felt that he had shown his naked soul to a stranger.
+
+In spite of this feeling he posted the letter.
+
+A few days elapsed before he received a reply. While he was waiting
+for it, he was a prey to an almost childish bashfulness and
+embarrassment.
+
+At last the answer came. He had struck the right note, and from the
+din and clamour of the nursery, and the fumes and smell of the
+kitchen, a song arose, clear and beautiful, tender and pure, like
+first love.
+
+Now an exchange of love-letters began. He wrote to her every night,
+and sometimes he sent her a postcard as well during the day. His
+colleagues didn't know what to think of him. He was so fastidious
+about his dress and personal appearance, that they suspected him of a
+love affair. And he was in love--in love again. He sent her his
+photograph, without the spectacles, and she sent him a lock of her
+hair.
+
+Their language was simple like a child's, and he wrote on coloured
+paper ornamented with little doves. Why shouldn't they? They were a
+long way off forty yet, even though the struggle for an existence had
+made them feel that they were getting old. He had neglected her during
+the last twelvemonth, not so much from indifference as from respect--he
+always saw in her the mother of his children.
+
+The tour of inspection was approaching its end. He was conscious of a
+certain feeling of apprehension when he thought of their meeting. He
+had corresponded with his sweetheart; should he find her in the mother
+and housewife? He dreaded a disappointment. He shrank at the thought
+of finding her with a kitchen towel in her hand, or the children
+clinging to her skirts. Their first meeting must be somewhere else,
+and they must meet alone. Should he ask her to join him at Waxholm, in
+the Stockholm Archipelago, at the hotel where they had spent so many
+happy hours during the period of their engagement? Splendid idea!
+There they could, for two whole days, re-live in memory the first
+beautiful spring days of their lives, which had flown, never to return
+again.
+
+He sat down and made the suggestion in an impassioned love-letter. She
+answered by return agreeing to his proposal, happy that the same idea
+had occurred to both of them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Two days later he arrived at Waxholm and engaged rooms at the hotel.
+It was a beautiful September day. He dined alone, in the great
+dining-room, drank a glass of wine and felt young again. Everything
+was so bright and beautiful. There was the blue sea outside; only the
+birch trees on the shore had changed their tints. In the garden the
+dahlias were still in full splendour, and the perfume of the mignonette
+rose from the borders of the flower beds. A few bees still visited the
+dying calyces but returned disappointed to their hives. The fishing
+boats sailed up the Sound before a faint breeze, and in tacking the
+sails fluttered and the sheets shook; the startled seagulls rose into
+the air screaming, and circled round the fishermen who were fishing
+from their boats for small herring.
+
+He drank his coffee on the verandah, and began to look out for the
+steamer which was due at six o'clock.
+
+Restlessly, apprehensively, he paced the verandah, anxiously watching
+fiord and Sound on the side where Stockholm lay, so as to sight the
+steamer as soon as she came into view.
+
+At last a little cloud of smoke showed like a dark patch on the horizon.
+His heart thumped against his ribs and he drank a liqueur. Then he went
+down to the shore.
+
+Now he could see the funnel right in the centre of the Sound, and soon
+after he noticed the flag on the fore-topmast.... Was she really on the
+steamer, or had she been prevented from keeping the tryst? It was
+only necessary for one of the children to be ill, and she wouldn't be
+there, and he would have to spend a solitary night at the hotel. The
+children, who during the last few weeks had receded into the background,
+now stepped between her and him. They had hardly mentioned them in their
+last letters, just as if they had been anxious to be rid of all
+eyewitnesses and spoil-sports.
+
+He stamped on the creaking landing-stage and then remained standing
+motionless near a bollard staring straight at the steamer which
+increased in size as she approached, followed in her wake by a river
+of molten gold that spread over the blue, faintly rippled expanse. Now
+he could distinguish people on the upper deck, a moving crowd, and
+sailors busy with the ropes, now a fluttering speck of white near the
+wheel-house. There was no one besides him on the landing-stage, the
+moving white speck could only be meant for him, and no one would wave
+to him but her. He pulled out his handkerchief and answered her
+greeting, and in doing so he noticed that his handkerchief was not a
+white one; he had been using coloured ones for years for the sake of
+economy.
+
+The steamer whistled, signalled, the engines stopped, she came
+alongside, and now he recognised her. Their eyes met in greeting; the
+distance was still too great for words. Now he could see her being
+pushed slowly by the crowd across the little bridge. It was she, and
+yet it wasn't.
+
+Ten years stretched between her and the picture of her which he had
+had in his mind. Fashion had changed, the cut of the clothes was
+different. Ten years ago her delicate face with its olive complexion
+was framed by the cap which was then worn, and which left the forehead
+free; now her forehead was hidden by a wicked imitation of a bowler
+hat. Ten years ago the beautiful lines of her figure were clearly
+definable under the artistic draperies of her cloak which playfully
+now hid, now emphasised the curve of her shoulders and the movement of
+her arms; now her figure was completely disguised by a long driving
+coat which followed the lines of her dress but completely concealed
+her figure. As she stepped off the landing-bridge, he caught sight of
+her little foot with which he had fallen in love, when it was encased
+in a buttoned boot, shaped on natural lines; the shoe which she was
+now wearing resembled a pointed Chinese slipper, and did not allow her
+foot to move in those dancing rhythms which had bewitched him.
+
+It was she and yet it was not she! He embraced and kissed her. She
+enquired after his health and he asked after the children. Then they
+walked up the strand.
+
+Words came slowly and sounded dry and forced. How strange! They were
+almost shy in each other's presence, and neither of them mentioned the
+letters.
+
+In the end he took heart of grace and asked:
+
+"Would you like to go for a walk before sunset?"
+
+"I should love to," she replied, taking his arm.
+
+They went along the high-road in the direction of the little town. The
+shutters of all the summer residences were closed; the gardens plundered.
+Here and there an apple, hidden among the foliage, might still be found
+hanging on the trees, but there wasn't a single flower in the flower
+beds. The verandahs, stripped of their sunblinds, looked like skeletons;
+where there had been bright eyes and gay laughter, silence reigned.
+
+"How autumnal!" she said.
+
+"Yes, the forsaken villas look horrible."
+
+They walked on.
+
+"Let us go and look at the house where we used to live."
+
+"Oh, yes! It will be fun."
+
+They passed the bathing vans.
+
+Over there, squeezed in between the pilot's and the gardener's cottages,
+stood the little house with its red fence, its verandah and its little
+garden.
+
+Memories of past days awoke. There was the bedroom where their first
+baby had been born. What rejoicing! What laughter! Oh! youth and gaiety!
+The rose-tree which they had planted was still there. And the
+strawberry-bed which they had made--no, it existed no longer, grass
+had grown over it. In the little plantation traces of the swing which
+they had put up were still visible, but the swing itself had
+disappeared.
+
+"Thank you so much for your beautiful letters," she said, gently
+pressing his arm.
+
+He blushed and made no reply.
+
+Then they returned to the hotel, and he told her anecdotes, in
+connection with his tour.
+
+He had ordered dinner to be served in the large dining-room at the
+table where they used to sit. They sat down without saying grace.
+
+It was a tete-a-tete dinner. He took the bread-basket and offered her
+the bread. She smiled. It was a long time since he had been so
+attentive. But dinner at a seaside hotel was a pleasant change and
+soon they were engaged in a lively conversation. It was a duet in
+which one of them extolled the days that had gone, and the other
+revived memories of "once upon a time." They were re-living the past.
+Their eyes shone and the little lines in their faces disappeared. Oh!
+golden days! Oh! time of roses which comes but once, if it comes at
+all, and which is denied to so many of us--so many of us.
+
+At dessert he whispered a few words into the ear of the waitress; she
+disappeared and returned a few seconds later with a bottle of champagne.
+
+"My dear Axel, what are you thinking of?"
+
+"I am thinking of the spring that has past, but will return again."
+
+But he wasn't thinking of it exclusively, for at his wife's reproachful
+words there glided through the room, catlike, a dim vision of the nursery
+and the porridge bowl.
+
+However--the atmosphere cleared again; the golden wine stirred their
+memories, and again they lost themselves in the intoxicating rapture
+of the past.
+
+He leaned his elbow on the table and shaded his eyes with his hand, as
+if he were determined to shut out the present--this very present
+which,--after all, had been of his own seeking.
+
+The hours passed. They left the dining-room and went into the
+drawing-room which boasted a piano, ordering their coffee to be
+brought there.
+
+"I wonder how the kiddies are?" said she, awakening to the hard facts
+of real life.
+
+"Sit down and sing to me," he answered, opening the instrument.
+
+"What would you like me to sing? You know I haven't sung a note for
+many days."
+
+He was well aware of it, but he _did_ want a song.
+
+She sat down before the piano and began to play. It was a squeaking
+instrument that reminded one of the rattling of loose teeth.
+
+"What shall I sing?" she asked, turning round on the music-stool.
+
+"You know, darling," he replied, not daring to meet her eyes.
+
+"Your song! Very well, if I can remember it." And she sang: "Where is
+the blessed country where my beloved dwells?"
+
+But alas! Her voice was thin and shrill and emotion made her sing out
+of tune. At times it sounded like a cry from the bottom of a soul
+which feels that noon is past and evening approaching. The fingers
+which had done hard work strayed on the wrong keys. The instrument,
+too, had seen its best days; the cloth on the hammers had worn away;
+it sounded as if the springs touched the bare wood.
+
+When she had finished her song, she sat for a while without turning
+round, as if she expected him to come and speak to her. But he didn't
+move; not a sound broke the deep silence. When she turned round at
+last, she saw him sitting on the sofa, his cheeks wet with tears. She
+felt a strong impulse to jump up, take his head between her hands and
+kiss him as she had done in days gone by, but she remained where she
+was, immovable, with downcast eyes.
+
+He held a cigar between his thumb and first finger. When the song was
+finished, he bit off the end and struck a match.
+
+"Thank you, Lily," he said, puffing at his cigar, "will you have your
+coffee now?"
+
+They drank their coffee, talked of summer holidays in general and
+suggested two or three places where they might go next summer. But
+their conversation languished and they repeated themselves.
+
+At last he yawned openly and said: "I'm off to bed."
+
+"I'm going, too," she said, getting up. "But I'll get a breath of
+fresh air first, on the balcony."
+
+He went into the bed-room. She lingered for a few moments in the
+dining-room, and then talked to the landlady for about half an hour of
+spring-onions and woollen underwear.
+
+When the landlady had left her she went into the bedroom and stood for
+a few minutes at the door, listening. No sound came from within. His
+boots stood in the corridor. She opened the door gently and went in.
+He was asleep.
+
+He was asleep!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At breakfast on the following morning he had a headache, and she
+fidgeted.
+
+"What horrible coffee," he said, with a grimace.
+
+"Brazilian," she said, shortly.
+
+"What shall we do to-day?" he asked, looking at his watch.
+
+"Hadn't you better eat some bread and butter, instead of grumbling at
+the coffee?" she said.
+
+"Perhaps you're right," he answered, "and I'll have a liqueur at the
+same time. That champagne last night, ugh!"
+
+He asked for bread and butter and a liqueur and his temper improved.
+
+"Let's go to the Pilot's Hill and look at the view."
+
+They rose from the breakfast table and went out.
+
+The weather was splendid and the walk did them good. But they walked
+slowly; she panted, and his knees were stiff; they drew no more
+parallels with the past.
+
+They walked across the fields. The grass had been cut long ago, there
+wasn't a single flower anywhere. They sat down on some large stones.
+
+He talked of the Board of Prisons and his office. She talked of the
+children.
+
+Then they walked on in silence. He looked at his watch.
+
+"Three hours yet till dinner time," he said. And he wondered how they
+could kill time on the next day.
+
+They returned to the hotel. He asked for the papers. She sat down by
+the side of him with a smile on her lips.
+
+They talked little during dinner. After dinner she mentioned the
+servants.
+
+"For heaven's sake, leave the servants alone!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Surely we haven't come here to quarrel!"
+
+"Am I quarrelling?"
+
+"Well, I'm not!"
+
+An awkward pause followed. He wished somebody would come. The children!
+Yes! This tete-a-tete embarrassed him, but he felt a pain in his heart
+when he thought of the bright hours of yesterday.
+
+"Let's go to Oak Hill," she said, "and gather wild strawberries."
+
+"There are no wild strawberries at this time of the year, it's autumn."
+
+"Let's go all the same."
+
+And they went. But conversation was difficult. His eyes searched for
+some object on the roadside which would serve for a peg on which to
+hang a remark, but there was nothing. There was no subject which they
+hadn't discussed. She knew all his views on everything and disagreed
+with most of them. She longed to go home, to the children, to her own
+fireside. She found it absurd to make a spectacle of herself in this
+place and be on the verge of a quarrel with her husband all the time.
+
+After a while they stopped, for they were tired. He sat down and began
+to write in the sand with his walking stick. He hoped she would
+provoke a scene.
+
+"What are you thinking of?" she asked at last.
+
+"I?" he replied, feeling as if a burden were falling off his shoulders,
+"I am thinking that we are getting old, mother: our innings are over,
+and we have to be content with what has been. If you are of the same
+mind, we'll go home by the night boat."
+
+"I have thought so all along, old man, but I wanted to please you."
+
+"Then come along, we'll go home. It's no longer summer, autumn is here."
+
+They returned to the hotel, much relieved.
+
+He was a little embarrassed on account of the prosaic ending of the
+adventure, and felt an irresistible longing to justify it from a
+philosophical standpoint.
+
+"You see, mother," he said, "my lo--h'm" (the word was too strong) "my
+affection for you has undergone a change in the course of time. It has
+developed, broadened; at first it was centred on the individual, but
+later on, on the family as a whole. It is not now you, personally,
+that I love, nor is it the children, but it is the whole....
+
+"Yes, as my uncle used to say, children are lightning conductors!"
+
+After his philosophical explanation he became his old self again. It
+was pleasant to take off his frock coat; he felt, as if he were
+getting into his dressing-gown.
+
+When they entered the hotel, she began at once to pack, and there she
+was in her element.
+
+They went downstairs into the saloon as soon as they got on board. For
+appearance sake, however, he asked her whether she would like to watch
+the sunset; but she declined.
+
+At supper he helped himself first, and she asked the waitress the
+price of black bread.
+
+When he had finished his supper, he remained sitting at the table,
+lingering over a glass of porter. A thought which had amused him for
+some time, would no longer be suppressed.
+
+"Old fool, what?" he said, lifting his glass and smiling at his wife
+who happened to look at him at the moment.
+
+She did not return his smile but her eyes, which had flashed for a
+second, assumed so withering an expression of dignity that he felt
+crushed.
+
+The spell was broken, the last trace of his old love had vanished; he
+was sitting opposite the mother of his children; he felt small.
+
+"No need to look down upon me because I have made a fool of myself for
+a moment," she said gravely. "But in a man's love there is always a
+good deal of contempt; it is strange."
+
+"And in the love of a woman?"
+
+"Even more, it is true! But then, she has every cause."
+
+"It's the same thing--with a difference. Probably both of them are
+wrong. That which one values too highly, because it is difficult of
+attainment, is easily underrated when one has obtained it."
+
+"Why does one value it too highly?"
+
+"Why is it so difficult of attainment?"
+
+The steam whistle above their heads interrupted their conversation.
+
+They landed.
+
+When they had arrived home, and he saw her again among her children,
+he realised that his affection for her had undergone a change, and
+that her affection for him had been transferred to and divided amongst
+all these little screamers. Perhaps her love for him had only been a
+means to an end. His part had been a short one, and he felt deposed.
+If he had not been required to earn bread and butter, he would
+probably have been cast off long ago.
+
+He went into his study, put on his dressing-gown and slippers, lighted
+his pipe and felt at home.
+
+Outside the wind lashed the rain against the window panes, and whistled
+in the chimney.
+
+When the children had been put to bed, his wife came and sat by him.
+
+"No weather to gather wild strawberries," she said.
+
+"No, my dear, the summer is over and autumn is here."
+
+"Yes, it is autumn," she replied, "but it is not yet winter, there is
+comfort in that."
+
+"Very poor comfort if we consider that we live but once."
+
+"Twice when one has children; three times if one lives to see one's
+grandchildren."
+
+"And after that, the end."
+
+"Unless there is a life after death."
+
+"We cannot be sure of that! Who knows? I believe it, but my faith is
+no proof."
+
+"But it is good to believe it. Let us have faith! Let us believe that
+spring will come again! Let us believe it!"
+
+"Yes, let us believe it," he said, gathering her to his breast.
+
+
+
+
+COMPULSORY MARRIAGE
+
+
+His father died early and from that time forth he was in the hands of
+a mother, two sisters and several aunts. He had no brother. They lived
+on an estate in the Swedish province, Soedermanland, and had no
+neighbours with whom they _could be_ on friendly terms. When he was
+seven years old, a governess was engaged to teach him and his sisters,
+and about the same time a girl cousin came to live with them.
+
+He shared his sisters' bedroom, played their games and went bathing
+with them; nobody looked upon him as a member of the other sex. Before
+long his sisters took him in hand and became his schoolmasters and
+tyrants.
+
+He was a strong boy to start with, but left to the mercy of so many
+doting women, he gradually became a helpless molly-coddle.
+
+Once he made an attempt to emancipate himself and went to play with
+the boys of the cottagers. They spent the day in the woods, climbed
+the trees, robbed the birds' nests and threw stones at the squirrels.
+Frithiof was as happy as a released prisoner, and did not come home to
+dinner. The boys gathered whortle-berries, and bathed in the lake. It
+was the first really enjoyable day of his life.
+
+When he came home in the evening, he found the whole house in great
+commotion. His mother though anxious and upset, did not conceal her
+joy at his return; Aunt Agatha, however, a spinster, and his mother's
+eldest sister, who ruled the house, was furious. She maintained that
+it would be a positive crime not to punish him. Frithiof could not
+understand why it should be a crime, but his aunt told him that
+disobedience was a sin. He protested that he had never been forbidden
+to play with the children of the cottagers. She admitted it but said
+that, of course, there could never have been two questions about it.
+And she remained firm, and regardless of his mother's pleading eyes,
+took him away to give him a whipping in her own room. He was eight
+years old and fairly big for his age.
+
+When the aunt touched his waist-belt to unbutton his knickers, a cold
+shiver ran down his back; he gasped and his heart thumped against his
+ribs. He made no sound, but stared, horror-struck, at the old woman
+who asked him, almost caressingly, to be obedient and not to offer any
+resistance. But when she laid hands on his shirt, he grew hot with
+shame and fury. He sprang from the sofa on which she had pushed him,
+hitting out right and left. Something unclean, something dark and
+repulsive, seemed to emanate from this woman, and the shame of his sex
+rose up in him as against an assailant.
+
+But the aunt, mad with passion, seized him, threw him on a chair and
+beat him. He screamed with rage, pain he did not feel, and with
+convulsive kicks tried to release himself; but all of a sudden he lay
+still and was silent.
+
+When the old woman let him go, he remained where he was, motionless.
+
+"Get up!" she said, in a broken voice.
+
+He stood up and looked at her. One of her cheeks was pale, the other
+crimson. Her eyes glowed strangely and she trembled all over. He looked
+at her curiously, as one might examine a wild beast, and all of a
+sudden a supercilious smile raised his upper lip; it seemed to him
+as if his contempt gave him an advantage over her. "She-devil!" He
+flung the word, newly acquired from the children of the cottagers,
+into her face, defiantly and scornfully, seized his clothes and flew
+downstairs to his mother, who was sitting in the dining-room, weeping.
+
+He wanted to open his heart to her and complain of his aunt's treatment,
+but she had not the courage to comfort him. So he went into the kitchen
+where the maids consoled him with a handful of currants.
+
+From this day on he was no longer allowed to sleep in the nursery with
+his sisters, but his mother had his bed removed to her own bedroom. He
+found his mother's room stuffy and the new arrangement dull; she
+frequently disturbed his sleep by getting up and coming to his bed in
+the night to see whether he was covered up; then he flew into a rage
+and answered her questions peevishly.
+
+He was never allowed to go out without being carefully wrapped up by
+someone, and he had so many mufflers that he never knew which one to
+put on. Whenever he tried to steal out of the house, someone was sure
+to see him from the window and call him back to put on an overcoat.
+
+By and by his sisters' games began to bore him. His strong arms no
+longer wanted to play battledore and shuttlecock, they longed to throw
+stones. The squabbles over a petty game of croquet, which demanded
+neither muscle nor brain, irritated him.
+
+The governess was another one of his trials. She always spoke to him
+in French and he invariably answered her in Swedish. A vague disgust
+with his whole life and surroundings began to stir in him.
+
+The free and easy manner in which everybody behaved in his presence
+offended him, and he retaliated by heartily loathing all with whom he
+came in contact. His mother was the only one who considered his feelings
+to a certain extent: she had a big screen put round his bed.
+
+Ultimately the kitchen and the servants' hall became his refuge; there
+everything he did was approved of. Occasionally, of course, matters
+were discussed there which might have aroused a boy's curiosity, but
+for him there were no secrets. On one occasion, for instance, he had
+accidentally come to the maids' bathing-place. The governess, who was
+with him, screamed, he could not understand why, but he stopped and
+talked to the girls who were standing or lying about in the water.
+Their nudity made no impression upon him.
+
+He grew up into a youth. An inspector was engaged to teach him farming
+for he was, of course, to take over the management of the estate in
+due time. They chose an old man who held the orthodox faith. The old
+man's society was not exactly calculated to stimulate a young man's
+brain, but it was an improvement on the old conditions. It opened
+new points of view to him and roused him to activity. But the
+inspector received daily and hourly so many instructions from the
+ladies, that he ended by being nothing but their mouth-piece.
+
+At the age of fifteen Frithiof was confirmed, received a present of a
+gold watch and was allowed to go out on horseback; he was not
+permitted, however, to realise his greatest ambition, namely to go
+shooting. True, there was no longer any fear of a whipping from his
+arch-enemy, but he dreaded his mother's tears. He always remained a
+child, and never managed to throw off the habit of giving way to the
+judgment of other people.
+
+The years passed; he had attained his twentieth year. One day he was
+standing in the kitchen watching the cook, who was busy scaling a
+perch. She was a pretty young woman with a delicate complexion. He was
+teasing her and finally put his hand down her back.
+
+"Do behave yourself, now, Mr. Frithiof," said the girl.
+
+"But I am behaving myself," he replied, becoming more and more
+familiar.
+
+"If mistress should see you!"
+
+"Well supposing she did?"
+
+At this moment his mother passed the open kitchen door; she instantly
+turned away and walked across the yard.
+
+Frithiof found the situation awkward and slunk away to his bed-room.
+
+A new gardener entered their service. In their wisdom, anxious to
+avoid trouble with the maids, the ladies had chosen a married man.
+But, as misfortune would have it, the gardener had been married long
+enough to be the father of an exceedingly pretty young daughter.
+
+Frithiof quickly discovered the sweet blossom among the other roses in
+the garden, and poured out all the good-will which lay stored up in
+his heart for _that_ half of humanity to which he did not belong, on
+this young girl, who was rather well developed and not without
+education.
+
+He spent a good deal of his time in the garden and stopped to talk to
+her whenever he found her working at one of the flower-beds or cutting
+flowers. She did not respond to his advances, but this only had the
+effect of stimulating his passion.
+
+One day he was riding through the wood, haunted, as usual, by visions
+of her loveliness which, in his opinion, reached the very pinnacle of
+perfection. He was sick with longing to meet her alone, freed from all
+fear of incurring some watcher's displeasure. In his heated
+imagination the desire of being near her had assumed such enormous
+proportions, that he felt that life without her would be impossible.
+
+He held the reins loosely in his hand, and the horse picked his way
+leisurely while its rider sat on its back wrapped in deep thought. All
+of a sudden something light appeared between the trees and the
+gardener's daughter emerged from the underwood and stepped out on the
+footpath.
+
+Frithiof dismounted and took off his hat. They walked on, side by
+side, talking, while he dragged his horse behind him. He spoke in
+vague words of his love for her; but she rejected all his advances.
+
+"Why should we talk of the impossible?" she asked.
+
+"What is impossible?" he exclaimed.
+
+"That a wealthy gentleman like you should marry a poor girl like me."
+
+There was no denying the aptitude of her remark, and Frithiof felt
+that he was worsted. His love for her was boundless, but he could see
+no possibility of bringing his doe safely through the pack which
+guarded house and home; they would tear her to pieces.
+
+After this conversation he gave himself up to mute despair.
+
+In the autumn the gardener gave notice and left the estate without
+giving a reason. For six weeks Frithiof was inconsolable, for he had
+lost his first and only love; he would never love again.
+
+In this way the autumn slowly passed and winter stood before the door.
+At Christmas a new officer of health came into the neighbourhood. He
+had grown-up children, and as the aunts were always ill, friendly
+relations were soon established between the two families. Among the
+doctor's children was a young girl and before long Frithiof was head
+over ears in love with her. He was at first ashamed of his infidelity
+to his first love, but he soon came to the conclusion that love was
+something impersonal, because it was possible to change the object of
+one's tenderness; it was almost like a power of attorney made out on
+the holder.
+
+As soon as his guardians got wind of this new attachment, the mother
+asked her son for a private interview.
+
+"You have now arrived at that age," she began, "when a man begins to
+look out for a wife."
+
+"I have already done that, my dear mother," he replied.
+
+"I'm afraid you've been too hasty," she said. "The girl of whom, I
+suppose, you are thinking, doesn't possess the moral principles which
+an educated man should demand."
+
+"What? Amy's moral principles! Who has anything to say against them?"
+
+"I won't say a word against the girl herself, but her father, as you
+know, is a freethinker."
+
+"I shall be proud to be related to a man who can think freely, without
+considering his material interests."
+
+"Well, let's leave him out of the question; you are forgetting, my dear
+Frithiof, that you are already bound elsewhere."
+
+"What? Do you mean...."
+
+"Yes; you have played with Louisa's heart."
+
+"Are you talking of cousin Louisa?"
+
+"I am. Haven't you looked upon yourselves as fiances since your earliest
+childhood? Don't you realise that she has put all her faith and trust in
+you?"
+
+"It's you who have played with us, driven us together, not I!" answered
+the son.
+
+"Think of your old mother, think of your sisters, Frithiof. Do you want
+to bring a stranger into this house which has always been our home, a
+stranger who will have the right to order us about?"
+
+"Oh! I see; Louisa is the chosen mistress!"
+
+"There's no chosen mistress, but a mother always has a right to choose
+the future wife of her son; nobody is so well fitted to undertake such
+a task. Do you doubt my good faith? Can you possibly suspect me, your
+mother, of a wish to injure you?"
+
+"No, no! but I--I don't love Louisa; I like her as a sister, but...."
+
+"Love? Nothing in all the world is so inconstant as love! It's folly
+to rely on it, it passes away like a breath; but friendship, conformity
+of views and habits, similar interests and a long acquaintanceship,
+these are the surest guarantees of a happy marriage. Louisa is a capable
+girl, domesticated and methodical, she will make your home as happy as
+you could wish."
+
+Frithiof's only way of escape was to beg his mother for time to
+consider the matter.
+
+Meanwhile all the ladies of the household had recovered their health,
+so that the doctor was no longer required. Still he called one day,
+but he was treated like a burglar who had come to spy out the land. He
+was a sharp man and saw at once how matters stood. Frithiof returned
+his call but was received coldly. This was the end of their friendly
+relations.
+
+Frithiof came of age.
+
+Frantic attempts were now made to carry the fortress by storm. The
+aunts cringed before the new master and tried to prove to him that
+they could not be dispensed with, by treating him as if he were a
+child. His sisters mothered him more than ever, and Louisa began to
+devote a great deal of attention to her dress. She laced herself
+tightly and curled her hair. She was by no means a plain girl, but she
+had cold eyes and a sharp tongue.
+
+Frithiof remained indifferent; as far as he was concerned she was
+sexless; he had never looked at her with the eyes of a man. But now,
+after the conversation with his mother, he could not help a certain
+feeling of embarrassment in her presence, especially as she seemed to
+seek his society. He met her everywhere; on the stairs, in the garden,
+in the stables even. One morning, when he was still in bed, she came
+into his room to ask him for a pin; she was wearing a dressing-jacket
+and pretended to be very shy.
+
+He took a dislike to her, but nevertheless she was always in his mind.
+
+In the meantime the mother had one conversation after another with her
+son, and aunt and sisters never ceased hinting at the anticipated
+wedding.
+
+Life was made a burden to him. He saw no way of escape from the net in
+which he had been caught. Louisa was no longer his sister and friend,
+though he did not like her any the better for it; his constant dwelling
+on the thought of marrying her had had the result of making him realise
+that she was a woman, an unsympathetic woman, it was true, but still a
+woman. His marriage would mean a change in his position, and, perhaps,
+delivery from bondage. There were no other girls in the neighbourhood,
+and, after all, she was probably as good as any other young woman.
+
+And so he went one day to his mother and told her that he had made up
+his mind. He would marry Louisa on condition that he should have an
+establishment of his own in one of the wings of the house, and his own
+table. He also insisted that his mother should propose for him, for he
+could not bring himself to do it.
+
+The compromise was accepted and Louisa was called in to receive
+Frithiof's embrace and timid kiss. They both wept for reasons which
+neither of them understood. They felt ashamed of themselves for the
+rest of the day. Afterwards everything went on as before, but the
+motherliness of aunts and sisters knew no bounds. They furnished the
+wing, arranged the rooms, settled everything; Frithiof was never
+consulted in the matter.
+
+The preparations for the wedding were completed. Old friends, buried
+in the provinces, were hunted up and invited to be present at the
+ceremony.
+
+The wedding took place.
+
+On the morning after his wedding day Frithiof was up early. He left
+his bed-room as quickly as possible, pretending that his presence was
+necessary in the fields.
+
+Louisa, who was still sleepy, made no objection. But as he was going
+out she called after him:
+
+"You won't forget breakfast at eleven!"
+
+It sounded like a command.
+
+He went to his den, put on a shooting coat and waterproof boots and
+took his gun, which he kept concealed in his wardrobe. Then he went
+out into the wood.
+
+It was a beautiful October morning. Everything was covered with hoar
+frost. He walked quickly as if he were afraid of being called back, or
+as if he were trying to escape from something. The fresh air had the
+effect of a bath. He felt a free man, at last, and he used his freedom
+to go out for a morning stroll with his gun. But this exhilarating
+feeling of bodily freedom soon passed. Up to now he had at least had a
+bedroom of his own. He had been master of his thoughts during the day
+and his dreams at night. That was over. The thought of that common
+bedroom tormented him; there was something unclean about it. Shame was
+cast aside like a mask, all delicacy of feeling was dispensed with,
+every illusion of the "high origin" of man destroyed; to come into
+such close contact with nothing but the beast in man had been too much
+for him, for he had been brought up by idealists. He was staggered by
+the enormity of the hypocrisy displayed in the intercourse between men
+and women; it was a revelation to him to find that the inmost substance
+of that indescribable womanliness was nothing but the fear of
+consequences. But supposing he had married the doctor's daughter,
+or the gardener's little girl? Then to be alone with her would be
+bliss, while to be alone with his wife was depressing and unlovely;
+then the coarse desire to satisfy a curiosity and a want would be
+transformed into an ecstasy more spiritual than carnal.
+
+He wandered through the wood without a purpose, without an idea of
+what he wanted to shoot; be only felt a vague desire to hear a shot
+and to kill something; but nothing came before his gun. The birds had
+already migrated. Only a squirrel was climbing about the branches of a
+pine-tree, staring at him with brilliant eyes. He raised the gun and
+pulled the trigger; but the nimble little beast was already on the
+other side of the trunk when the shot hit the tree. But the sound
+impressed his nerves pleasantly.
+
+He left the footpath and went through the undergrowth. He stamped on
+every fungus that grew on his way. He was in a destructive mood. He
+looked for a snake so as to trample on it or kill it with a shot.
+
+Suddenly he remembered that he ought to go home and that it was the
+morning after his wedding day. The mere thought of the curious glances
+to which he would be exposed had the effect of making him feel like a
+criminal, about to be unmasked and shown up for having committed a
+crime against good manners and, what was worse, against nature. Oh!
+that he could have left this world behind him! But how was he to do
+that?
+
+His thoughts grew tired at last of revolving round and round the same
+problem and he felt a craving for food.
+
+He decided to return home and have some breakfast.
+
+On entering the gate which led to the court yard, he saw the whole
+house-party standing before the entrance hall. As soon as they caught
+sight of him they began to cheer. He crossed the yard with uncertain
+footsteps and listened with ill-concealed irritation to the sly
+questions after his health. Then he turned away and went into the house,
+never noticing his wife, who was standing amongst the group waiting for
+him to go up to her and kiss her.
+
+At the breakfast table he suffered tortures; tortures which he knew
+would be burnt into his memory for all times. The insinuations of his
+guests offended him and his wife's caresses stung him. His day of
+rejoicing was the most miserable day of his life.
+
+In the course of a few months the young wife, with the assistance of
+aunts and sisters, had established her over-rule in the house. Frithiof
+remained, what he had always been, the youngest and dullest member of
+the household. His advice was sometimes asked for, but never acted
+upon; he was looked after as if he were still a child. His wife soon
+found it unbearable to dine with him alone, for he kept an obstinate
+silence during the meal. Louisa could not stand it; she must have a
+lightning conductor; one of the sisters removed into the wing.
+
+Frithiof made more than one attempt to emancipate himself, but his
+attempts were always frustrated by the enemy; they were too many for
+him, and they talked and preached until he fled into the wood.
+
+The evenings held terror for him. He hated the bedroom, and went to it
+as to a place of execution. He became morose and avoided everybody.
+
+They had been married for a year now, and still there was no promise
+of a child; his mother took him aside one day to have a talk to him.
+
+"Wouldn't you like to have a son?" she asked.
+
+"Of course, I would," he replied.
+
+"You aren't treating your wife very kindly," said the mother as gently
+as possible.
+
+He lost his temper.
+
+"What? What do you say? Are you finding fault with me? Do you want me
+to toil all day long? H'm! You don't know Louisa! But whose business
+is it but mine? Bring your charge against me in such a way that I can
+answer it!"
+
+But the mother was not disposed to do that.
+
+Lonely and miserable, he made friends with the inspector, a young man,
+addicted to wine and cards. He sought his company and spent the evenings
+in his room; he went to bed late, as late as possible.
+
+On coming home one night, he found his wife still awake and waiting
+for him.
+
+"Where have you been?" she asked sharply.
+
+"That's my business," he replied.
+
+"To be married and have no husband is anything but pleasant," she
+rejoined. "If we had a child, at least!"
+
+"It isn't my fault that we haven't!"
+
+"It isn't mine!"
+
+A quarrel arose as to whose fault it was, and the quarrel lasted for
+two years.
+
+As both of them were too obstinate to take medical advice, the usual
+thing happened. The husband cut a ridiculous figure, and the wife a
+tragic one. He was told that a childless woman was sacred because, for
+some reason or other, "God's" curse rested on her. That "God" could
+also stoop to curse a man was beyond the women's comprehension.
+
+But Frithiof had no doubt that a curse rested on him for his life was
+dreary and unhealthy. Nature has created two sexes, which are now
+friends, now enemies. He had met the enemy, an overwhelming enemy.
+
+"What is a capon?" he was asked by one of his sisters one day. She was
+busy with her needlework and asked the question a propos of nothing.
+
+He looked at her suspiciously. No, she did not know the meaning of the
+word; she had probably listened to a conversation and her curiosity
+was aroused.
+
+But the iron had entered his soul. He was being laughed at. He grew
+suspicious. Everything he heard and saw he connected with that charge.
+Beside himself with rage, he seduced one of the maids.
+
+His act had the desired result. In due time he was a father.
+
+Now Louisa was looked upon as a martyr and he as a blackguard. The
+abuse left him indifferent, for he had vindicated his honour--if it
+was an honour and not merely a lucky chance to be born without
+defects.
+
+But the incident roused Louisa's jealousy and--it was a strange
+thing--awakened in her a sort of love for her husband. It was a love
+which irritated him, for it showed itself in unremitting watchfulness
+and nervous obtrusiveness; sometimes even in maternal tenderness and
+solicitude which knew no bounds. She wanted to look after his gun, see
+whether it was charged; she begged him on her knees to wear his overcoat
+when he went out.... She kept his home with scrupulous care, tidied
+and dusted all day long; every Saturday the rooms were turned inside
+out, the carpets beaten and his clothes aired. He had no peace and
+never knew when he would be turned out of his room so that it could
+be scrubbed.
+
+There was not sufficient to do to occupy him during the day, for the
+women looked after everything. He studied agriculture and attempted to
+make improvements, but all his efforts were frustrated. He was not
+master in his own house.
+
+Finally he lost heart. He had grown taciturn because he was always
+contradicted. The want of congenial company and fellows-in-misfortune
+gradually dulled his brain; his nerves went to pieces; he neglected
+his appearance and took to drink.
+
+He was hardly ever at home now. Frequently he could be found,
+intoxicated, at the public house or in the cottages of the farm
+labourers. He drank with everybody and all day long. He stimulated his
+brain with alcohol for the sake of the relief he found in talking. It
+was difficult to decide whether he drank in order to be able to talk
+to somebody who did not contradict him, or whether he drank merely in
+order to get drunk.
+
+He sold privileges and farm produce to the cottagers to provide
+himself with money, for the women held the cash. Finally he burgled
+his own safe and stole the contents.
+
+There was an orthodox, church-going inspector on the premises now; the
+previous one had been dismissed on account of his intemperate habits.
+When at last, through the clergyman's influence, the proprietor of the
+inn lost his license Frithiof took to drinking with his own farm
+labourers. Scandal followed on scandal.
+
+He developed into a heavy drinker who had epileptic fits whenever he
+was deprived of alcohol.
+
+He was ultimately committed to an institution where he remained as an
+incurable patient.
+
+At lucid intervals, when he was capable of surveying his life, his
+heart was filled with compassion for all women who are compelled to
+marry without love; his compassion was all the deeper because he had
+suffered in his own flesh the curse which lies on every violation of
+nature; and yet he was only a man.
+
+He saw the cause of his unhappiness in the family--the family as a
+social institution, which does not permit the child to become an
+independent individual at the proper time.
+
+He brought no charge against his wife, for was she not equally
+unhappy, a victim of the same unfortunate conditions which are
+honoured by the sacred name of Law?
+
+
+
+
+CORINNA
+
+
+Her father was a general, her mother died when she was still a baby.
+After her mother's death few ladies visited the house; the callers
+were mostly men. And her father took her education into his own hands.
+
+She went out riding with him, was present at the manoeuvres, took an
+interest in gymnastics and attended the musters of the reserves.
+
+Since her father occupied the highest rank in their circle of friends,
+everybody treated him with an amount of respect which is rarely shown
+to equals, and as she was the general's daughter, she was treated in
+the same way. She held the rank of a general and she knew it.
+
+There was always an orderly sitting in the hall who rose with much
+clanking and clashing of steel and stood at attention whenever she
+went in or out. At the balls none but the majors dared to ask her for
+a dance; she looked upon a captain as a representative of an inferior
+race, and a lieutenant as a naughty boy.
+
+She fell into the habit of appreciating people entirely according to
+their rank. She called all civilians "fishes," poorly-clad people
+"rascals," and the very poor "the mob."
+
+The ladies, however, were altogether outside this scale. Her father,
+who occupied a position above all men, and who was saluted respectfully
+wherever he went, always stood up before a lady, regardless of her age,
+kissed the hands of those he knew, and was at the beck and call of every
+pretty woman. The result of this was that very early in life she became
+very firmly convinced of the superiority of her own sex, and accustomed
+herself to look upon a man as a lower being.
+
+Whenever she went out on horseback, a groom invariably rode behind
+her. When she stopped to admire the landscape, he stopped too. He was
+her shadow. But she had no idea what he looked like, or whether he was
+young or old. If she had been asked about his sex, she would not have
+known how to reply; it had never occurred to her that the shadow could
+have a sex; when, in mounting, she placed her little riding-boot in
+his hand, she remained quite indifferent, and even occasionally raised
+her habit a little as if nobody were present.
+
+These inbred conceptions of the surpassing importance of rank
+influenced her whole life. She found it impossible to make friends
+with the daughters of a major or a captain, because their fathers were
+her father's social inferiors. Once a lieutenant asked her for a dance.
+To punish him for his impudence, she refused to talk to him in the
+intervals. But when she heard later on that her partner had been one
+of the royal princes, she was inconsolable. She who knew every order
+and title, and the rank of every officer, had failed to recognise a
+prince! It was too terrible!
+
+She was beautiful, but pride gave her features a certain rigidity
+which scared her admirers away. The thought of marriage had never
+occurred to her. The young men were not fully qualified, and those to
+whose social position there was no objection, were too old. If she,
+the daughter of a general, had married a captain, then a major's wife
+would have taken precedence of her. Such a degradation would have
+killed her. Moreover, she had no wish to be a man's chattel, or an
+ornament for his drawing-room. She was accustomed to command,
+accustomed to be obeyed; she could obey no man. The freedom and
+independence of a man's life appealed to her; it had fostered in her a
+loathing for all womanly occupations.
+
+Her sexual instinct awoke late. As she belonged to an old family which
+on her father's side, had squandered its strength in a soulless
+militarism, drink and dissipation, and on her mother's had suppressed
+fertility to prevent the splitting up of property, Nature seemed to
+have hesitated about her sex at the eleventh hour; or perhaps had
+lacked strength to determine on the continuation of the race. Her
+figure possessed none of those essentially feminine characteristics,
+which Nature requires for her purposes, and she scorned to hide her
+defects by artificial means.
+
+The few women friends she had, found her cold and indifferent towards
+everything connected with the sex problem. She treated it with
+contempt, considered the relationship between the sexes disgusting,
+and could not understand how a woman could give herself to a man. In
+her opinion Nature was unclean; to wear clean underlinen, starched
+petticoats and stockings without holes was to be virtuous; poor was
+merely another term for dirt and vice.
+
+Every summer she spent with her father on their estate in the country.
+
+She was no great lover of the country. Nature made her feel small; she
+found the woods uncanny, the lake made her shudder, there was danger
+hidden in the tall meadow-grass. She regarded the peasants as cunning
+and rather filthy beasts. They had so many children, and she had no
+doubt that both boys and girls were full of vice. Nevertheless they
+were always invited to the manor house on Midsummer day and on the
+general's birthday, to play the part of the chorus of grand opera,
+that is to say, to cheer and dance, and look like the figures in a
+painting.
+
+It was springtime. Helena, on her thoroughbred mare, had penetrated
+into the depths of the country. She felt tired and dismounted; she
+fastened her mare to a birchtree which grew near an enclosure. Then
+she strolled along by the side of a ditch and began to gather wild
+orchids. The air was soft and balmy, steam was rising from the ground.
+She could hear the frogs jumping into the ditch which was half-full of
+water.
+
+All at once the mare neighed and, stretching her slender neck over the
+fence, drew in the air with wide-open nostrils.
+
+"Alice!" she called out, "be quiet, old girl!"
+
+And she continued to gather the modest flowers which so cleverly hide
+their secrets behind the prettiest and neatest curtains that for all
+the world look like printed calico.
+
+But the mare neighed again. From behind the hazel bushes on the other
+side of the enclosure came an answer, a second neighing, deeper and
+fuller. The swampy ground of the enclosure shook, powerful hoofs
+scattered the stones, to right and left and a black stallion appeared
+at full gallop. The tense neck carried a magnificent head, the muscles
+lay like ropes under the glossy skin. As he caught sight of the mare,
+his eyes began to flash. He stopped and stretched out his neck as if
+he were going to yawn, raised his upper lip and showed his teeth. Then
+he galloped across the grass and approached the railings.
+
+Helena picked up her skirt and ran to her mare; she raised her hand to
+seize the bridle, but the mare broke away and took the fence. Then the
+wooing began.
+
+She stood at the fence and called, but the excited mare paid no heed.
+Inside the enclosure the horses chased one another; the situation was
+a critical one. The breath of the stallion came like smoke from his
+nostrils and white foam flecked his shoulders.
+
+Helena longed to escape, for the scene filled her with horror. She had
+never witnessed the raging of a natural instinct in a living body.
+This uncontrolled outbreak terrified her.
+
+She wanted to run after her mare and drag her away by force, but she
+was afraid of the savage stallion. She wanted to call for help, but
+she was loath to attract other eyewitnesses. She turned her back to
+the scene and decided to wait.
+
+The sound of horses' hoofs came from the direction of the highroad; a
+carriage appeared in sight.
+
+There was no escape; although she was ashamed to stay where she was,
+it was too late now to run away, for the horses were slowing down and
+the carriage stopped a few yards in front of her.
+
+"How beautiful!" exclaimed one of the occupants of the carriage, a
+lady, and raised her golden lorgnette so as to get a better view of
+the spectacle.
+
+"But why are we stopping?" retorted the other, irritably. "Drive on!"
+
+"Don't you think it beautiful?" asked the elder lady.
+
+The coachman's smile was lost in his great beard, as he urged the
+horses on.
+
+"You are such a prude, my dear Milly," said the first voice. "To me
+this kind of thing is like a thunderstorm, or a heavy sea...."
+
+Helena could hear no more. She felt crushed with vexation, shame and
+horror.
+
+A farm labourer came shuffling along the highroad. Helena ran to meet
+him, so as to prevent him from witnessing the scene, and at the same
+time ask his help. But he was already too near.
+
+"I believe it's the miller's black stallion," he said gravely. "In
+that case it will be better to wait until it's all over, for he won't
+brook interference. If the lady will leave it to me, I will bring her
+mare home later on."
+
+Glad to have done with the matter, Helena hurried away.
+
+When she arrived home, she was ill.
+
+She refused to ride her mare again, for in her eyes the beast had
+become unclean.
+
+This pretty adventure had a greater influence on Helena's psychic
+development than might have been expected. The brutal outbreak of a
+natural instinct, the undisguised exhibition of which in the community
+of men is punished with a term of imprisonment, haunted her as if she
+had been present at an execution. It distressed her during the day and
+disturbed her dreams at night. It increased her fear of nature and
+made her give up her former amazon's life. She remained at home and
+gave herself up to study.
+
+The house boasted a library. But as misfortune would have it, no
+additions had been made since her grandfather's death. All books were
+therefore a generation too old, and Helena found antiquated ideals.
+The first book which fell into her hands was Madame de Stael's _Corinna_
+The way in which the volume lay on the shelf indicated that it had
+served a special purpose. Bound in green and gold, a little shabby at
+the edges, full of marginal notes and underlined passages, the work of
+her late mother, it became a bridge, as it were, between mother and
+daughter, which enabled the now grown-up daughter to make the
+acquaintance of the dead mother. These pencil notes were the story
+of a soul. Displeasure with the prose of life and the brutality of
+nature, had inflamed the writer's imagination and inspired it to
+construct a dreamworld in which the souls dwelled, disincarnate. It
+was essentially an aristocratic world, this dreamworld, for it
+required financial independence from its denizens, so that the soul
+might be fed with thoughts. This brain-fever, called romance, was
+therefore the gospel of the wealthy, and became absurd and pitiful as
+soon as it penetrated to the lower classes.
+
+Corinna became Helena's ideal: the divinely inspired poetess who like
+the nun of the middle-ages, had vowed a vow of chastity, so that she
+might lead a life of purity, who was, of course, admired by a brilliant
+throng, rose to immeasurable heights above the heads of the petty
+every-day mortals. It was the old ideal all over again, transposed:
+salutes, standing at attention, rolling of drums, the first place
+everywhere. Helena was quite ignorant of the fact that Madame de Stael
+outlived the Corinna ideal, and did not become a real influence until
+she came out of her dreamworld into the world of facts.
+
+She ceased to take an interest in everyday affairs, she communed with
+herself and brooded over her ego. The inheritance which her mother had
+left her in posthumous notes began to germinate. She identified herself
+with both Corinna and her mother, and spent much time in meditating on
+her mission in life. That nature had intended her to become a mother
+and do her share in the propagation of the human race, she refused to
+admit her mission was to explain to humanity what Madame de Stael's
+Corinna had thought fifty years ago; but she imagined the thoughts were
+her own, striving to find expression.
+
+She began to write. One day she attempted verse. She succeeded. The
+lines were of equal length and the last words rhymed. A great light
+dawned on her: she was a poetess. One thing more remained: she wanted
+ideas; well she could take them from _Corinna_.
+
+In this way quite a number of poems originated.
+
+But they had also to be bestowed on the world, and this could not be
+done unless they were printed. One day she sent a poem entitled
+_Sappho_ and signed _Corinna_ to the _Illustrated Newspaper_. With a
+beating heart she went out to post the letter herself, and as it
+dropped into the pillarbox, she prayed softly to "God."
+
+A trying fortnight ensued. She ate nothing, hardly closed her eyes,
+and spent her days in solitude.
+
+When Saturday came and the paper was delivered, she trembled as if she
+were fever-stricken, and when she found that her verses were neither
+printed nor mentioned in "Letters to Correspondents," she almost broke
+down.
+
+On the following Saturday, when she could count on an answer with some
+certainty, she slipped the paper into her pocket without unfolding it,
+and went into the woods. When she had arrived at a secluded spot and
+made sure that no one was watching her, she unfolded the paper and
+hastily glanced at the contents. One poem only was printed, entitled
+_Bellman's-day_. She turned to "Letters to Correspondents." Her first
+glance at the small print made her start violently. Her fingers
+clutched the paper, rolled it into a ball and flung it into the
+underwood. Then she stared, fascinated, at the ball of white,
+glimmering through the green undergrowth. For the first time in her
+life she had received an insult. She was completely unnerved. This
+unknown journalist had dared what nobody had dared before: he had been
+rude to her. She had come out from behind her trenches into the arena
+where high birth counts for nothing, but where victory belongs to that
+wonderful natural endowment which we call talent, and before which all
+powers bow when it can no longer be denied. But the unknown had also
+offended the woman in her, for he had said:
+
+"The Corinna of 1807 would have cooked dinners and rocked cradles if
+she had lived after 1870. But you are no Corinna."
+
+For the first time she had heard the voice of the enemy, the
+arch-enemy, man. Cook dinners and rock cradles! They should see!
+
+She went home. She felt so crushed that her muscles hardly obeyed her
+relaxed nerves.
+
+When she had gone a little way, she suddenly turned round and retraced
+her footsteps. Supposing anybody found that paper! It would give her
+away.
+
+She returned to the spot, and breaking off a hazel switch, dragged the
+paper out from where it lay and carefully smoothed it. Then she raised
+a piece of turf, hid the paper underneath and rolled a stone on the
+top. It was a hope that lay buried there, and also a proof--of what?
+That she had committed a crime? She felt that she had. She had done a
+wrong, she had shown herself naked before the other sex.
+
+From this day on a struggle went on in her heart. Ambition and fear of
+publicity strove within her, and she was unable to come to a decision.
+
+In the following autumn her father died. As he had been addicted to
+gambling, and more often lost than won, he left debts behind him. But
+in smart society these things are of no account. There was no
+necessity for Helena to earn her living in a shop, for a hitherto
+unknown aunt came forward and offered her a home.
+
+But her father's death wrought a complete change in her position. No
+more salutes; the officers of the regiment nodded to her in a friendly
+fashion, the lieutenants asked her to dance. She saw plainly that the
+respect shown to her had not been shown to her personally, but merely
+to her rank. She felt degraded and a lively sympathy for all subalterns
+was born in her; she even felt a sort of hatred for all those who
+enjoyed her former privileges. Side by side with this feeling grew up
+a yearning for personal appreciation, a desire to win a position
+surpassing all others, although it might not figure in the Army list.
+
+She longed to distinguish herself, to win fame, and, (why not?) to
+rule. She possessed one talent which she had cultivated to some
+extent, although she had never risen above the average; she played the
+piano. She began to study harmony and talked of the sonata in G minor
+and the symphony in F major as if she had written them herself. And
+forthwith she began to patronise musicians.
+
+Six months after her father's death, the post of a lady-in-waiting was
+offered to her. She accepted it. The rolling of drums and military
+salutes recommenced, and Helena gradually lost her sympathy with
+subalterns. But the mind is as inconstant as fortune, and fresh
+experiences again brought about a change of her views.
+
+She discovered one day, and the day was not long in coming, that she
+was nothing but a servant. She was sitting in the Park with the
+Duchess. The Duchess was crocheting.
+
+"I consider those blue stockings perfectly idiotic," said the Duchess.
+
+Helena turned pale; she stared at her mistress.
+
+"I don't," she replied.
+
+"I didn't ask your opinion," replied the Duchess, letting her ball of
+wool roll into the dust.
+
+Helena's knees trembled; her future, her position passed away before
+her eyes like a flash of lightning. She went to pick up the wool. It
+seemed to her that her back was breaking as she stooped, and her
+cheeks flamed when the Duchess took the ball without a word of thanks.
+
+"You are not angry?" asked the Duchess, staring impertinently at her
+victim.
+
+"Oh, no, Your Royal Highness," was Helena's untruthful reply.
+
+"They say that you are a blue-stocking yourself," continued the
+Duchess. "Is it true?"
+
+Helena had a feeling as if she were standing nude before her tormentor
+and made no reply.
+
+For the second time the ball rolled into the dust. Helena pretended
+not to notice it, and bit her lips to hold back the angry tears which
+were welling up in her eyes. "Pick up my wool, please," said the
+Duchess.
+
+Helena drew herself up, looked the autocrat full in the face and said:
+
+"I won't."
+
+And with these words she turned and fled. The sand gritted under her
+feet, and little clouds of dust followed in the wake of her train. She
+almost ran down the stone steps and disappeared.
+
+Her career at court was ended; but a sting remained. Helena was made
+to feel what it means to be in disgrace, and above all things what it
+means to throw up one's post. Society does not approve of changes and
+nobody would believe that she had voluntarily renounced the sunshine
+of the court. No doubt she had been sent away. Yes, it must be so, she
+had been sent away. Never before had she felt so humiliated, so
+insulted. It seemed to her that she had lost caste; her relations
+treated her with coldness, as if they were afraid that her disgrace
+might be infectious; her former friends gave her the cold shoulder
+when they met her, and limited their conversation to a minimum.
+
+On the other hand, as she stooped from her former height, the
+middle-classes received her with open arms. It was true, at first
+their friendliness offended her more than the coldness of her own
+class, but in the end she preferred being first down below to being
+last up above. She joined a group of Government officials and
+professors who hailed her with acclamations. Animated by the
+superstitious awe with which the middle classes regard everybody
+connected with the court, they at once began to pay her homage. She
+became their chosen leader and hastened to form a regiment. A number
+of young professors enlisted at once and she arranged lectures for
+women. Old academic rubbish was brought out from the lumber-room,
+dusted and sold for new wares. In a dining-room, denuded of its
+furniture, lectures on Plato and Aristotle were given to an audience
+which unfortunately held no key to this shrine of wisdom.
+
+Helena, in conquering these pseudo-mysteries felt the intellectual
+superior of the ignorant aristocracy. This feeling gave her an
+assurance which impressed people. The men worshipped her beauty and
+aloofness; but she never felt in the least moved in their company. She
+accepted their homage as a tribute due to women and found it
+impossible to respect these lackeys who jumped up and stood at
+attention whenever she passed.
+
+But in the long run her position as an unmarried woman failed to
+satisfy her, and she noted with envious eyes the freedom enjoyed by
+her married sisters. They were at liberty to go wherever they liked,
+talk to whom they liked, and always had a footman in their husband to
+meet them and accompany them on their way home. In addition, married
+women had a better social position, and a great deal more influence.
+With what condescension for instance, they treated the spinsters! But
+whenever she thought of getting married, the incident with her mare
+flashed into her mind and terror made her ill.
+
+In the second year the wife of a professor from Upsala, who combined
+with her official position great personal charm, appeared on the
+scene. Helena's star paled; all her worshippers left her to worship
+the new sun. As she no longer possessed her former social position,
+and the savour of the court had vanished like the scent on a
+handkerchief, she was beaten in the fight. One single vassal remained
+faithful to her, a lecturer on ethics, who had hitherto not dared to
+push himself forward. His attentions were well received, for the
+severity of his ethics filled her with unlimited confidence. He wooed
+her so assiduously that people began to gossip; Helena, however, took
+no notice, she was above that.
+
+One evening, after a lecture on "The Ethical Moment in Conjugal Love"
+or "Marriage as a Manifestation of Absolute Identity," for which the
+lecturer received nothing but his expenses and a grateful pressure of
+hands, they were sitting in the denuded dining-room on their
+uncomfortable cane chairs, discussing the subject.
+
+"You mean to say then," said Helena, "that marriage is a relationship
+of co-existence between two identical Egos?"
+
+"I mean what I said already in my lecture, that only if there exists
+such a relationship between two congruous identities, _being_ can
+conflow into _becoming_ of higher potentiality."
+
+"What do you mean by _becoming?_" asked Helena, blushing.
+
+"The post-existence of two egos in a new ego."
+
+"What? You mean that the continuity of the ego, which through the
+cohabitation of two analogous beings will necessarily incorporate
+itself into a becoming...."
+
+"No, my dear lady, I only meant to say that marriage, in profane
+parlance, can only produce a new spiritual ego, which cannot be
+differentiated as to sex, when there is compatibility of souls. I mean
+to say that the new being born under those conditions will be a
+conglomerate of male and female; a new creature to whom both will have
+yielded their personality, a unity in multiplicity, to use a
+well-known term, an _'hommefemme.'_ The man will cease to be man, the
+woman will cease to be woman."
+
+"That is the union of souls!" exclaimed Helena, glad to have
+successfullly navigated the dangerous cliffs.
+
+"It is the harmony of souls of which Plato speaks. It is true marriage
+as I have sometimes visualised it in my dreams, but which,
+unfortunately, I shall hardly be able to realise in actuality."
+
+Helena stared at the ceiling and whispered:
+
+"Why shouldn't you, one of the elect, realise this dream?"
+
+"Because she to whom my soul is drawn with irresistible longing does
+not believe in--h'm--love."
+
+"You cannot be sure of that."
+
+"Even if she did, she would always be tormented by the suspicion that
+the feeling was not sincere. Moreover, there is no woman in the world
+who would fall in love with me, no, not one."
+
+"Yes, there is," said Helena, gazing into his glass eye. (He had a
+glass eye, but it was so well made, it was impossible to detect it.)
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Quite sure," replied Helena. "For you are different to other men. You
+realise what spiritual love means, the love of the souls!"
+
+"Even if the woman did exist, I could never marry her."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Share a room with her!"
+
+"That needn't be the case. Madame de Stael merely lived in the same
+house as her husband."
+
+"Did she?"
+
+"What interesting topic are you two discussing?" asked the professor's
+wife, coming out of the drawing-room.
+
+"We were talking of _Laocoon_," answered Helena, rising, from her
+chair. She was offended by the note of condescension in the lady's
+voice. And she made up her mind.
+
+A week later her engagement to the lecturer was publicly announced.
+They decided to be married in the autumn and take up their abode at
+Upsala.
+
+A brilliant banquet, in celebration of the close of his bachelor life,
+was given to the lecturer on ethics. A great deal of wine had been
+consumed and the only artist the town boasted, the professor of
+drawing at the Cathedral School, had depicted in bold outlines the
+victim's career up to date. It was the great feature of the whole
+entertainment. Ethics was a subject of teaching and a milch cow, like
+many others, and need not necessarily influence either the life of the
+community, or the life of the individual. The lecturer had not been a
+saint, but had had his adventures like everybody else; these were
+public property, for he had had no reason to keep them dark. With a
+careless smile he watched his career, pictured in chalk and colours,
+accompanied by witty verses, unfolding itself before his eyes, but
+when at last his approaching bliss was portrayed in simple but
+powerful sketches, he became deeply embarrassed, and the thought "If
+Helena were to see that!" flashed like lightning through his brain.
+
+After the banquet, at which according to an old, time-honoured custom,
+he had drunk eight glasses of brandy, he was so intoxicated that he
+could no longer suppress his fears and apprehensions. Among his hosts
+was a married man and to him the victim turned for counsel and advice.
+Since neither of them was sober, they chose, as the most secluded spot
+in the whole room, two chairs right in the centre, immediately under
+the chandelier. Consequently they were soon surrounded by an eagerly
+listening crowd.
+
+"Look here! You are a married man," said the lecturer at the top of
+his voice, so as not to be heard by the assembly, as he fondly
+imagined. "You must give me a word of advice, just one, only one
+little word of advice, for I am extremely sensitive to-night,
+especially in regard to this particular point."
+
+"I will, brother," shouted his friend, "just one word, as you say,"
+and he put his arm round his shoulders that he might whisper to him;
+then he continued, screaming loudly: "Every act consists of three
+parts, my brother: _Progresses, culmen, regressus_. I will speak to
+you of the first, the second is never mentioned. Well, the initiative,
+so to speak, that is the man's privilege--your part! You must take the
+initiative, you must attack, do you understand?"
+
+"But supposing the other party does not approve of the initiative?"
+
+The friend stared at the novice, taken aback; then he rose and
+contemptuously turned his back on him.
+
+"Fool!" he muttered.
+
+"Thank you!" was all the grateful pupil could reply.
+
+Now he understood.
+
+On the following day he was on fire with all the strong drink he had
+consumed; he went and took a hot bath, for on the third day was to be
+his wedding.
+
+The wedding guests had departed; the servant had cleared the table;
+they were alone.
+
+Helena was comparatively calm, but he felt exceedingly nervous. The
+period of their engagement had been enhanced by conversations on
+serious subjects. They had never behaved liked ordinary, every-day
+fiances, had never embraced or kissed. Whenever he had attempted the
+smallest familiarity, her cold looks had chilled his ardour. But he
+loved her as a man loves a woman, with body and soul.
+
+They fidgeted about the drawing-room and tried to make conversation.
+But an obstinate silence again and again reasserted itself. The
+candles in the chandelier had burnt low and the wax fell in greasy
+drops on the carpet. The atmosphere was heavy with the smell of food
+and the fumes of the wines which mingled with the voluptuous perfume
+of carnations and heliotrope, exhaled by Helena's bridal bouquet that
+lay on a side-table.
+
+At last he went up to her, held out his arms, and said in a voice
+which he hoped sounded natural:
+
+"And now you are my wife!"
+
+"What do you mean?" was Helena's brusque reply.
+
+Completely taken aback, he allowed his arms to drop to his sides. But
+he pulled himself together again, almost immediately, and said with a
+self-conscious smile:
+
+"I mean to say that we are husband and wife."
+
+Helena looked at him as if she thought that he had taken leave of his
+senses.
+
+"Explain your words!" she said.
+
+That was just what he couldn't do. Philosophy and ethics failed him;
+he was faced by a cold and exceedingly unpleasant reality.
+
+"It's modesty," he thought. "She's quite right, but I must attack and
+do my duty."
+
+"Have you misunderstood me?" asked Helena and her voice trembled.
+
+"No, of course not, but, my dear child, h'm--we--h'm...."
+
+"What language is that? Dear child? What do you take me for? What do
+you mean? Albert, Albert!"--she rushed on without waiting for a reply,
+which she didn't want--"Be great, be noble, and learn to see in women
+something more than sex. Do that, and you will be happy and great!"
+
+Albert was beaten. Crushed with shame and furious with his false
+friend who had counselled him wrongly, he threw himself on his knees
+before her and stammered:
+
+"Forgive me, Helena, you are nobler, purer, better than I; you are
+made of finer fibre and you will lift me up when I threaten to perish
+in coarse matter."
+
+"Arise and be strong, Albert," said Helena, with the manner of a
+prophetess. "Go in peace and show to the world that love and base
+animal passion are two very different things. Good-night!"
+
+Albert rose from his knees and stared irresolutely after his wife who
+went into her room and shut the door behind her.
+
+Full of the noblest and purest sentiments he also went into his room.
+He took off his coat and lighted a cigar. His room was furnished like
+a bachelor's room: a bed-sofa, a writing table, some book shelves, a
+washstand.
+
+When he had undressed, he dipped a towel into his ewer and rubbed
+himself all over. Then he lay down on his sofa and opened the evening
+paper. He wanted to read while he smoked his cigar. He read an article
+on Protection. His thoughts began to flow in a more normal channel,
+and he considered his position.
+
+Was he married or was he still a bachelor? He was a bachelor as
+before, but there was a difference--he now had a female boarder who
+paid nothing for her board. The thought was anything but pleasant, but
+it was the truth. The cook kept house, the housemaid attended to the
+rooms. Where did Helena come in? She was to develop her individuality!
+Oh, rubbish! he thought, I am a fool! Supposing his friend had been
+right? Supposing women always behaved in this silly way under these
+circumstances? She could not very well come to him--he must go to her.
+If he didn't go, she would probably laugh at him to-morrow, or, worse
+still, be offended. Women were indeed incomprehensible. He must make
+the attempt.
+
+He jumped up, put on his dressing-gown and went into the drawing-room.
+With trembling knees he listened outside Helena's door.
+
+Not a sound. He took heart of grace, and approached a step or two.
+Blue flashes of lightning darted before his eyes as he knocked.
+
+No answer. He trembled violently and beads of perspiration stood on
+his forehead.
+
+He knocked again. And in a falsetto voice, proceeding from a parched
+throat, he said:
+
+"It's only I."
+
+No answer. Overwhelmed with shame, he returned to his room, puzzled
+and chilled.
+
+She was in earnest, then.
+
+He crept between the sheets and again took up the paper.
+
+He hadn't been reading long when he heard footsteps in the street which
+gradually approached and then stopped. Soft music fell on his ear, deep,
+strong voices set in:
+
+"Integer vitae sclerisque purus...."
+
+He was touched. How beautiful it was!
+
+Purus! He felt lifted above matter. It was in accordance with the spirit
+of the age then, this higher conception of marriage. The current of
+ethics which penetrated the epoch was flowing through the youth of the
+country....
+
+"_Nec venenatis...._"
+
+Supposing Helena had opened her door!
+
+He gently beat time and felt himself as great and noble as Helena
+desired him to be.
+
+_"Fusce pharetra!"_
+
+Should he open the window and thank the undergraduates in the name of
+his wife?
+
+He got out of bed.
+
+A fourfold peal of laughter crashed against the windowpanes at the very
+moment he lifted his hand to draw up the blind.
+
+There could be no doubt, they were making fun of him!
+
+Beside himself with anger he staggered back from the window and
+knocked against the writing-table. He was a laughing-stock. A faint
+hatred against the woman whom he had to thank for this humiliating
+scene, began to stir within him, but his love acquitted her. He was
+incensed against the jesters down below, and swore to bring them
+before the authorities.
+
+But again and again he reverted to his unpleasant position, furious
+that he had allowed himself to be led by the nose. He paced his room
+until dawn broke in the East. Then he threw himself on his bed and
+fell asleep, in bitter grief over the dismal ending of his
+wedding-day, which ought to have been the happiest day of his life.
+
+On the following morning he met Helena at the breakfast table. She was
+cold and self-possessed as usual. Albert, of course, did not mention
+the serenade. Helena made great plans for the future and talked
+volumes about the abolition of prostitution. Albert met her half-way
+and promised to do all in his power to assist her. Humanity must
+become chaste, for only the beasts were unchaste.
+
+Breakfast over, he went to his lecture. The serenade had roused his
+suspicions, and as he watched his audience, he fancied that they were
+making signs to each other; his colleagues, too, seemed to congratulate
+him in a way which offended him.
+
+A big, stout colleague, who radiated vigour and _joie de vivre_, stopped
+him in the corridor which led to the library, seized him by the collar
+and said with a colossal grin on his broad face.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," was the indignant reply with
+which he tore himself away and rushed down stairs.
+
+When he arrived home, his flat was crowded with his wife's friends.
+Women's skirts brushed against his legs, and when he sat down in an
+armchair, he seemed to sink out of sight into piles and piles of
+women's clothes.
+
+"I've heard rumours of a serenade last night," said the professor's
+wife.
+
+Albert grew pale, but Helena took up the gauntlet.
+
+"It was well meant, but they really might have been sober. This
+excessive drinking among students is terrible."
+
+"What did they sing?" asked the professor's wife.
+
+"Oh! the usual songs: 'My life a sea,' and so on," replied Helena.
+
+Albert stared at her in amazement, but he couldn't help admiring her.
+
+The day went with gossip and discussions. Albert felt tired. Been
+joyed spending a few hours, after the daily toil was over, in
+pleasant conversation with women, but this was really too much. And
+moreover, he had to agree to everything they said, for whenever he
+attempted to express a contradictory opinion, they were down on him in
+a minute.
+
+Night fell; it was bedtime. Husband and wife wished one another good
+night and retired to their separate rooms.
+
+Again he was attacked by doubt and restlessness. He fancied that he
+had seen a tender look on Helena's face, and he wasn't quite sure
+whether she hadn't squeezed his hand. He lit a cigar and unfolded his
+paper. As soon as he began to read of every-day matters, he seemed to
+see clearly.
+
+"It's sheer madness," he said aloud, throwing the paper aside.
+
+He slipped on his dressing-gown and went into the drawing-room.
+
+Somebody was moving in Helena's room.
+
+He knocked.
+
+"Is that you, Louise?" asked a voice from inside.
+
+"No, it's only I," he whispered, hardly able to speak.
+
+"What's the matter? What do you want?"
+
+"I want to speak to you, Helena," he answered, hardly knowing what he
+was saying.
+
+The key turned in the lock. Albert could hardly trust his ears. The
+door flew open. Helena stood on the threshold, still fully dressed.
+
+"What is it you want?" she asked. Then she noticed that he was in his
+dressing-gown and that his eyes shone strangely.
+
+She stretched out her hand, pushed him away and slammed the door.
+
+He heard a thud on the floor and almost simultaneously loud sobs.
+
+Furious, but abashed, he returned to his room. She was in earnest,
+then! But this was certainly anything but normal.
+
+He lay awake all night, brooding, and on the following morning he
+breakfasted alone.
+
+When he came home for lunch, Helena received him with an expression of
+pained resignation.
+
+"Why do you treat me like that?" she asked.
+
+He apologised, with as few words as possible. Then he repented his
+curtness and climbed down.
+
+Thus matters stood for six months. He was tossed between doubt, rage
+and love, but his chain held.
+
+His face grew pale and his eyes lost their lustre. His temper had
+become uncertain; a sullen fury smouldered beneath his outward calm.
+
+Helena found him changed, despotic, because he was beginning to oppose
+her, and often left the meetings to seek amusement elsewhere.
+
+One day he was asked to become a candidate for a professorial chair.
+He refused, believing that he had no chance, but Helena gave him no
+peace until he complied with the conditions. He was elected. He never
+knew the reason why, but Helena did.
+
+A short time after there was a by-election.
+
+The new professor, who had never dreamed of taking an active interest
+in public affairs, was nonplussed when he found himself nominated. His
+surprise was even greater when he was elected. He intended to decline,
+but Helena's entreaties and her argument that life in a big city was
+preferable to an existence in a small provincial town induced him to
+accept the mandate.
+
+They removed to Stockholm.
+
+During these six months the newly-made professor and member of
+Parliament had made himself acquainted with the new ideas which came
+from England and purposed to recreate society and the old standards of
+morality. At the same time he felt that the moment was not far off
+when he would have to break with his "boarder." He recovered his
+strength and vigour in Stockholm, where fearless thinkers encouraged
+him to profess openly the views which he had long held in secret.
+
+Helena, on the other hand, scented a favourable opportunity in the
+counter-current and threw herself into the arms of the Church Party.
+This was too much for Albert and he rebelled. His love had grown cold;
+he found compensation elsewhere. He didn't consider himself unfaithful
+to his wife for she had never claimed constancy in a relationship
+which didn't exist.
+
+His friendly intercourse with the other sex aroused his manliness and
+made him realise his degradation.
+
+His growing estrangement did not escape Helena. Their home-life became
+unpleasant and every moment threatened to bring a catastrophe.
+
+The opening of Parliament was imminent. Helena became restless and
+seemed to have changed her tactics. Her voice was more gentle and she
+appeared anxious to please him. She looked after the servants and saw
+that the meals were served punctually.
+
+He grew suspicious and wondered, watched her movements and prepared
+for coming events.
+
+One morning, at breakfast, Helena looked embarrassed and self-conscious.
+She played with her dinner napkin and cleared her throat several times.
+Then she took her courage in both her hands and made a plunge.
+
+"Albert," she began, "I can count on you, can't I? You will serve the
+Cause to which I have devoted my life?"
+
+"What cause is that?" he asked curtly, for now he had the upper hand.
+
+"You will do something for the oppressed women, won't you?"
+
+"Where are the oppressed women?"
+
+"What? Have you deserted our great cause? Are you leaving us in the
+lurch?"
+
+"What cause are you talking about?"
+
+"The Women's Cause!"
+
+"I know nothing about it."
+
+"You know nothing about it? Oh, come! You must admit that the position
+of the women of the lower classes is deplorable."
+
+"No, I can't see that their position is any worse than the position of
+the men. Deliver the men from their exploiters and the women too will
+be free."
+
+"But the unfortunates who have to sell themselves, and the scoundrels
+who--"
+
+"The scoundrels who pay! Has ever a man taken payment for a pleasure
+which both enjoy?"
+
+"That is not the question! The question is whether it is just that the
+law of the land should punish the one and let the other go scotfree."
+
+"There is no injustice in that. The one has degraded herself until she
+has become a source of infection, and therefore the State treats her
+as it treats a mad dog. Whenever you find a man, degraded to that
+degree, well, put him under police control, too. Oh, you pure angels,
+who despise men and look upon them as unclean beasts!..."
+
+"Well, what is it? What do you want me to do?"
+
+He noticed that she had taken a manuscript from the sideboard and held
+it in her hand. Without waiting for a reply, he took it from her and
+began to examine it. "A bill to be introduced into Parliament! I'm to
+be the man of straw who introduces it! Is that moral? Strictly speaking,
+is it honest?"
+
+Helena rose from her chair, threw herself on the sofa and burst into
+tears.
+
+He, too, rose and went to her. He took her hand in his and felt her
+pulse, afraid lest her attack might be serious. She seized his hand
+convulsively, and pressed it against her bosom.
+
+"Don't leave me," she sobbed, "don't go. Stay, and let me keep faith
+in you."
+
+For the first time in his life he saw her giving way to her emotions.
+This delicate body, which he had loved and admired so much, could be
+warmed into life! Red, warm blood flowed in those blue veins. Blood
+which could distil tears. He gently stroked her brow.
+
+"Oh!" she sighed, "why aren't you always good to me like that? Why
+hasn't it always been so?"
+
+"Well," he answered, "why hasn't it? Tell me, why not?"
+
+Helena's eyelids drooped. "Why not?" she breathed, softly.
+
+She did not withdraw her hand and he felt a gentle warmth radiating
+from her velvety skin; his love for her burst into fresh flames, but
+this time he felt that there was hope.
+
+At last she rose to her feet.
+
+"Don't despise me," she said, "don't despise me, dear."
+
+And she went into her room.
+
+What was the matter with her? Albert wondered as he went up to town.
+Was she passing through a crisis of some sort? Was she only just
+beginning to realise that she was his wife?
+
+He spent the whole day in town. In the evening he went to the theatre.
+They played _Le monde ou l'on s'ennuit_. As he sat and watched platonic
+love, the union of souls, unmasked and ridiculed, he felt as if a veil
+of close meshed lies were being drawn from his reason; he smiled as he
+saw the head of the charming beast peeping from underneath the card-board
+wings of the stage-angel; he almost shed tears of amusement at his long,
+long self-deception; he laughed at his folly. What filth and corruption
+lay behind this hypocritical morality, this insane desire for
+emancipation from healthy, natural instincts. It was the ascetic
+teaching of idealism and Christianity which had implanted this germ
+into the nineteenth century.
+
+He felt ashamed! How could he have allowed himself to be duped all this
+time!
+
+There was still light in Helena's room as he passed her door on tip-toe
+so as not to wake her. He heard her cough.
+
+He went straight to bed, smoked his cigar and read his paper. He was
+absorbed in an article on conscription, when all of a sudden Helena's
+door was flung open, and footsteps and screams from the drawing-room
+fell on his ears. He jumped up and rushed out of his room, believing
+that the house was on fire.
+
+Helena was standing in the drawing-room in her nightgown.
+
+She screamed when she saw her husband and ran to her room; on the
+threshold she hesitated and turned her head.
+
+"Forgive me, Albert," she stammered, "it's you. I didn't know that you
+were still up. I thought there were burglars in the house. Please,
+forgive me."
+
+And she closed her door.
+
+What did it all mean? Was she in love with him?
+
+He went into his room and stood before the looking-glass. Could any
+woman fall in love with him? He was plain. But one loves with one's
+soul and many a plain man had married a beautiful woman. It was true,
+though, that in such cases the man had nearly always possessed wealth
+and influence.--Was Helena realising that she had placed herself in a
+false position? Or had she become aware of his intention to leave her
+and was anxious to win him back?
+
+When they met at the breakfast table on the following morning, Helena
+was unusually gentle, and the professor noticed that she was wearing a
+new morning-gown trimmed with lace, which suited her admirably.
+
+As he was helping himself to sugar, his hand accidentally touched hers.
+
+"I beg your pardon, dear," she said with an expression on her face which
+ he had never seen before. She looked like a young girl.
+
+They talked about indifferent things.
+
+On the same day Parliament opened.
+
+Helena's yielding mood lasted and she grew more and more affectionate.
+
+The period allowed for the introduction of new bills drew to a close.
+
+One evening the professor came home from his club in an unusually gay
+frame of mind. He went to bed with his paper and his cigar. After a
+while he heard Helena's door creak. Silence, lasting for a few minutes,
+followed. Then there came a knock at his door.
+
+"Who is there?" he shouted.
+
+"It's I, Albert, do dress and come into the drawing-room, I want to
+speak to you."
+
+He dressed and went into the drawing-room.
+
+Helena had lighted the chandelier and was sitting on the sofa, dressed
+in her lace morning-gown.
+
+"Do forgive me," she said, "but I can't sleep. My head feels so
+strange. Come here and talk to me."
+
+"You are all unstrung, little girl," said Albert, taking her hand in
+his own. "You ought to take some wine."
+
+He went into the dining-room and returned with a decanter and two
+glasses.
+
+"Your health, darling," he said.
+
+Helena drank and her cheeks caught fire.
+
+"What's wrong?" he asked, putting his arm round her waist.
+
+"I'm not happy," she replied.
+
+He was conscious that the words sounded dry and artificial, but his
+passion was roused and he didn't care.
+
+"Do you know why you are unhappy?" he asked.
+
+"No. I only know one thing, and that is that I love you."
+
+Albert caught her in his arms and kissed her face.
+
+"Are you my wife, or aren't you?" he whispered hoarsely.
+
+"I am your wife," breathed Helena, collapsing, as if every nerve in
+her body had snapped.
+
+"Altogether?" he whispered paralysing her with his kisses.
+
+"Altogether," she moaned, moving convulsively, like a sleeper
+struggling with the horrors of a nightmare.
+
+When Albert awoke, he felt refreshed, his head was clear and he was
+fully conscious of what had happened in the night. He could think
+vigorously and logically like a man after a deep and restful sleep.
+The whole scene stood vividly before his mind. He saw the full
+significance of it, unvarnished, undisguised, in the sober light of
+the morning.
+
+She had sold herself!
+
+At three o'clock in the morning, intoxicated with love, blind to
+everything, half insane, he had promised to introduce her bill.
+
+And the price! She had given herself to him calmly, coldly, unmoved.
+
+Who was the first woman who found out that she could sell her favour?
+And who was the woman who discovered that man is a buyer? Whoever she
+was, she was the founder of marriage and prostitution. And they say
+that marriages are made in heaven!
+
+He realised his degradation and hers. She wanted to triumph over her
+friends, to be the first woman who had taken an active share in the
+making of her country's laws; for the sake of this triumph she had
+sold herself.
+
+Well, he would tear the mask from her face. He would show her what she
+really was. He would tell her that prostitution could never be
+abolished while women found an advantage in selling themselves.
+
+With his mind firmly made up, he got out of bed and dressed.
+
+He had to wait a little for her in the dining-room. He rehearsed the
+scene which would follow and pulled himself together to meet her.
+
+She came in calm, smiling, triumphant, but more beautiful than he had
+ever seen her before. A sombre fire burnt in her eyes, and he, who had
+expected that she would meet him with blushes and down-cast eyes, was
+crushed. She was the triumphant seducer, and he the bashful victim.
+
+The words he had meant to say refused to come. Disarmed and humble he
+went to meet her and kissed her hand.
+
+She talked as usual without the slightest indication that a new factor
+had entered her life.
+
+He went to the House, fuming, with her bill in his pocket, and only
+the vision of the bliss in store for him, calmed his excited nerves.
+
+But when, in the evening, he knocked quite boldly at her door, it
+remained closed.
+
+It remained closed for three weeks. He cringed before her like a dog,
+obeyed every hint, fulfilled all her wishes--it was all in vain.
+
+Then his indignation got the better of him and he overwhelmed her with
+a flood of angry words. She answered him sharply. But when she
+realised that she had gone too far, that his chain was wearing thin,
+she gave herself to him.
+
+And he wore his chain. He bit it, strained every nerve to break it,
+but it held.
+
+She soon learned how far she could go, and whenever he became restive,
+she yielded.
+
+He was seized with a fanatical longing to make her a mother. He
+thought it might make a woman of her, bring out all that was good and
+wholesome in her. But the future seemed to hold no promise on that
+score.
+
+Had ambition, the selfish passion of the individual, destroyed the
+source of life? He wondered....
+
+One morning she informed him that she was going away for a few days to
+stay with her friends.
+
+When he came home on the evening of the day of her departure and found
+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
+creche. 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.
+
+"You are an idealist," she said, "and I agree with you from the very
+bottom of my heart. You are asking for my friendship, if I understand
+you rightly. It shall be yours, but I must put you to the test first.
+Will you prove to me that you can pocket your pride for the sake of a
+friend?"
+
+"Speak and I shall obey!"
+
+Adeline took off a golden chain with a locket which she had been
+wearing round her neck.
+
+"Wear this as a symbol of our friendship."
+
+"I will wear it," he said, in an uncertain voice; "but it might make
+the people think that we are engaged."
+
+"And do you object?"
+
+"No, not if you don't! Will you be my wife?"
+
+"Yes, Axel! I will! For the world looks askance at friendship between
+man and woman; the world is so base that it refuses to believe in the
+possibility of such a thing."
+
+And he wore the chain.
+
+The world, which is very materialistic at heart, repeated the verdict
+of her friends:
+
+"She marries him in order to be married; he marries her because he
+wants a wife."
+
+The world made nasty remarks, too. It said that he was marrying her
+for the sake of her money; for hadn't he himself declared that
+anything so degrading as love did not exist between them? There was
+no need for friends to live together like married couples.
+
+The wedding took place. The world had received a hint that they would
+live together like brother and sister, and the world awaited with a
+malicious grin the result of the great reform which should put
+matrimony on another basis altogether.
+
+The newly married couple went abroad.
+
+When they returned, the young wife was pale and ill-tempered. She
+began at once to take riding-lessons. The world scented mischief and
+waited. The man looked as if he were guilty of a base act and was
+ashamed of himself. It all came out at last.
+
+"They have _not_ been living like brother and sister," said the world.
+
+"What? Without loving one another? But that is--well, what is it?"
+
+"A forbidden relationship!" said the materialists.
+
+"It is a spiritual marriage!"
+
+"Or incest," suggested an anarchist.
+
+Facts remained facts, but the sympathy was on the wane. Real life,
+stripped of All make-believe, confronted them and began to take
+revenge.
+
+The lawyer practised his profession, but the wife's profession was
+practised by a maid and a nurse. Therefore she had no occupation. The
+want of occupation encouraged brooding, and she brooded a great deal
+over her position. She found it unsatisfactory. Was it right that an
+intellectual woman like her should spend her days in idleness? Once
+her husband had ventured to remark that no one compelled her to live
+in idleness. He never did it again.
+
+"She had no profession."
+
+"True; to be idle was no profession. Why didn't she nurse the baby?"
+
+"Nurse the baby? She wanted a profession which brought in money."
+
+"Was she such a miser, then? She had already more than she knew how to
+spend; why should she want to earn money?"
+
+"To be on an equal footing with him."
+
+"That could never be, for she would always be in a position to which
+he could never hope to attain. It was nature's will that the woman was
+to be the mother, not the man."
+
+"A very stupid arrangement!"
+
+"Very likely! The opposite might have been the case, but that would
+have been equally stupid."
+
+"Yes; but her life was unbearable. It didn't satisfy her to live for
+the family only, she wanted to live for others as well."
+
+"Hadn't she better begin with the family? There was plenty of time to
+think of the others."
+
+The conversation might have continued through all eternity; as it was
+it only lasted an hour.
+
+The lawyer was, of course, away almost all day long, and even when he
+was at home he had his consulting hours. It drove Adeline nearly mad.
+He was always locked in his consulting-room with other women who
+confided information to him which he was bound to keep secret. These
+secrets formed a barrier between them, and made her feel that he was
+more than a match for her.
+
+It roused a sullen hatred in her heart; she resented the injustice of
+their mutual relationship; she sought for a means to drag him down.
+Come down he must, so that they should be on the same level.
+
+One day she proposed the foundation of a sanatorium. He said all he
+could against it, for he was very busy with his practice. But on
+further consideration he thought that occupation of some sort might be
+the saving of her; perhaps it would help her to settle down.
+
+The sanatorium was founded; he was one of the directors.
+
+She was on the Committee and ruled. When she had ruled for six months,
+she imagined herself so well up in the art of healing that she
+interviewed patients and gave them advice.
+
+"It's easy enough," she said.
+
+Then it happened that the house-surgeon made a mistake, and she
+straightway lost all confidence in him. It further happened that one
+day, in the full consciousness of her superior wisdom, she prescribed
+for a patient herself, in the doctor's absence. The patient had the
+prescription made up, took it and died.
+
+This necessitated a removal to another centre of activity. But it
+disturbed the equilibrium. A second child, which was born about the
+same time, disturbed it still more and, to make matters worse, a
+rumour of the fatal accident was spreading through the town.
+
+The relations between husband and wife were unlovely and sad, for
+there had never been any love between them. The healthy, powerful
+natural instinct, which does not reflect, was absent; what remained
+was an unpleasant liaison founded on the uncertain calculations of a
+selfish friendship.
+
+She never voiced the thoughts hatched behind her burning brow after
+she had discovered that she was mistaken in believing that she had a
+higher mission, but she made her husband suffer for it.
+
+Her health failed; she lost her appetite and refused to go out. She
+grew thin and seemed to be suffering from a chronic cough. The husband
+made her repeatedly undergo medical examinations, but the doctors were
+unable to discover the cause of her malady. In the end he became so
+accustomed to her constant complaints that he paid no more attention
+to them.
+
+"I know it's unpleasant to have an invalid wife," she said.
+
+He admitted in his heart that it was anything but pleasant; had he
+loved her, he would neither have felt nor admitted it.
+
+Her emaciation became so alarming, that he could not shut his eyes to
+it any longer, and had to consent to her suggestion that she should
+consult a famous professor.
+
+Adeline was examined by the celebrity. "How long have you been ill?"
+he asked.
+
+"I have never been very strong since I left the country," she replied.
+"I was born in the country."
+
+"Then you don't feel well in town?"
+
+"Well? Who cares whether I feel well or not?" And her face assumed an
+expression which left no room for doubt: she was a martyr.
+
+"Do you think that country air would do you good?" continued the
+professor.
+
+"Candidly, I believe that it is the only thing which could save my
+life."
+
+"Then why don't you live in the country?"
+
+"My husband couldn't give up his profession for my sake."
+
+"He has a wealthy wife and we have plenty of lawyers."
+
+"You think, then, that we ought to live in the country?"
+
+"Certainly, if you believe that it would do you good. You are not
+suffering from any organic disease, but your nerves are unstrung;
+country air would no doubt benefit you."
+
+Adeline returned home to her husband very depressed.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"The professor had sentenced her to death if she remained in town."
+
+The lawyer was much upset. But since the fact that his distress was
+mainly caused by the thought of giving up his practice was very
+apparent, she held that she had absolute proof that the question of
+her health was a matter of no importance to him.
+
+"What? He didn't believe that it was a matter of life and death?
+Didn't he think the professor knew better than he? Was he going to let
+her die?"
+
+He was not going to let her die. He bought an estate in the country
+and engaged an inspector to look after it.
+
+As a sheriff and a district-judge were living on the spot, the lawyer
+had no occupation. The days seemed to him as endless as they were
+unpleasant. Since his income had stopped with his practice, he was
+compelled to live on his wife's money. In the first six months he read
+a great deal and played "Fortuna." In the second six months he gave up
+reading, as it served no object. In the third he amused himself by
+doing needle-work.
+
+His wife, on the other hand, devoted herself to the farm, pinned up
+her skirts to the knees and went into the stables. She came into the
+house dirty, and smelling of the cow-shed. She felt well and ordered
+the labourers about that it was a pleasure to hear her, for she had
+grown up in the country and knew what she was about.
+
+When her husband complained of having nothing to do, she laughed at
+him.
+
+"Find some occupation in the house. No one need ever be idle in a
+house like this."
+
+He would have liked to suggest some outside occupation, but he had not
+the courage.
+
+He ate, slept, and went for walks. If he happened to enter the barn or
+the stables, he was sure to be in the way and be scolded by his wife.
+
+One day, when he had grumbled more than usual, while the children had
+been running about, neglected by the nurse, she said:
+
+"Why don't you look after the children? That would give you something
+to do."
+
+He stared at her. Did she really mean it?
+
+"Well, why shouldn't he look after the children? Was there anything
+strange in her suggestion?"
+
+He thought the matter over and found nothing strange in it. Henceforth
+he took the children for a walk every day.
+
+One morning, when he was ready to go out, the children were not
+dressed. The lawyer felt angry and went grumbling to his wife; of the
+servants he was afraid.
+
+"Why aren't the children dressed?" he asked.
+
+"Because Mary is busy with other things. Why don't you dress them?
+You've nothing else to do. Do you consider it degrading to dress your
+own children?"
+
+He considered the matter for a while, but could see nothing degrading
+in it. He dressed them.
+
+One day he felt inclined to take his gun and go out by himself,
+although he never shot anything.
+
+His wife met him on his return.
+
+"Why didn't you take the children for a walk this morning?" she asked
+sharply and reproachfully.
+
+"Because I didn't feel inclined to do so."
+
+"You didn't feel inclined? Do you think I want to work all day long in
+stable and barn? One ought to do _something_ useful during the day, even
+if it does go against one's inclination."
+
+"So as to pay for one's dinner, you mean?"
+
+"If you like to put it that way! If I were a big man like you, I
+should be ashamed to be lying all day long on a sofa, doing nothing."
+
+He really felt ashamed, and henceforth he established himself the
+children's nurse. He never failed in his duties. He saw no disgrace in
+it, yet he was unhappy. Something was wrong, somewhere, he thought,
+but his wife always managed to carry her point.
+
+She sat in the office and interviewed inspector and overseer; she
+stood in the store-room and weighed out stores for the cottagers.
+Everybody who came on the estate asked for the mistress, nobody ever
+wanted to see the master.
+
+One day he took the children past a field in which cattle were
+grazing. He wanted to show them the cows and cautiously took them up
+to the grazing herd. All at once a black head, raised above the backs
+of the other animals, stared at the visitors, bellowing softly.
+
+The lawyer picked up the children and ran back to the fence as hard as
+he could. He threw them over and tried to jump it himself, but was
+caught on the top. Noticing some women on the other side, he shouted:
+
+"The bull! the bull!"
+
+But the women merely laughed, and went to pull the children, whose
+clothes were covered with mud, out of the ditch.
+
+"Don't you see the bull?" he screamed.
+
+"It's no bull, sir," replied the eldest of the women, "the bull was
+killed a fortnight ago."
+
+He came home, angry and ashamed and complained of the women to his
+wife. But she only laughed.
+
+In the afternoon, as husband and wife were together in the drawing-room,
+there was a knock at the door.
+
+"Come in!" she called out.
+
+One of the women who had witnessed the adventure with the bull came
+in, holding in her hand the lawyer's gold chain.
+
+"I believe this belongs to you, M'm," she said hesitatingly.
+
+Adeline looked first at the woman and then at her husband, who stared
+at the chain with wide-open eyes.
+
+"No, it belongs to your master," she said, taking the proffered chain.
+"Thank you! Your master will give you something for finding it."
+
+He was sitting there, pale and motionless.
+
+"I have no money, ask my wife to give you something," he said, taking
+the necklet.
+
+Adeline took a crown out of her big purse and handed it to the woman,
+who went away, apparently without understanding the scene.
+
+"You might have spared me this humiliation!" he said, and his voice
+plainly betrayed the pain he felt.
+
+"Are you not man enough to take the responsibility for your words and
+actions on your own shoulders? Are you ashamed to wear a present I
+gave you, while you expect me to wear yours? You're a coward! And you
+imagine yourself to be a man!"
+
+Henceforth the poor lawyer had no peace. Wherever he went, he met
+grinning faces, and farm-labourers and maid-servants from the safe
+retreat of sheltered nooks, shouted "the bull! the bull!" whenever he
+went past.
+
+Adeline had resolved to attend an auction and stay away for a week.
+She asked her husband to look after the servants in her absence.
+
+On the first day the cook came and asked him for money for sugar and
+coffee. He gave it to her. Three days later she came again and asked
+him for the same thing. He expressed surprise at her having already
+spent what he had given her.
+
+"I don't want it all for myself," she replied, "and mistress doesn't
+mind."
+
+He gave her the money. But, wondering whether he had made a mistake,
+he opened his wife's account book and began to add up the columns.
+
+He arrived at a strange result. When he had added up all the pounds
+for a month, he found it came to a lispound.
+
+He continued checking her figures, and the result was everywhere the
+same. He took the principal ledger and found that, leaving the high
+figures out of the question, very stupid mistakes in the additions had
+been made. Evidently his wife knew nothing of denominate quantities or
+decimal fractions. This unheard of cheating of the servants must
+certainly lead to ruin.
+
+His wife came home. After having listened to a detailed account of the
+auction, he cleared his throat, intending to tell his tale, but his
+wife anticipated his report:
+
+"Well, and how did you get on with the servants?"
+
+"Oh! very well, but I am certain that they cheat you."
+
+"Cheat me!"
+
+"Yes; for instance the amount spent on coffee and sugar is too large."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"I saw it in your account book."
+
+"Indeed! You poked your nose into my books?"
+
+"Poked my nose into your books? No, but I took it upon me to check
+your...."
+
+"What business was it of yours?"
+
+"And I found that you keep books without having the slightest
+knowledge of denominate quantities or decimal fractions."
+
+"What? You think I don't know?"
+
+"No, you don't! And therefore the foundations of the establishment are
+shaky. Your book-keeping is all humbug, old girl!"
+
+"My book-keeping concerns no one but myself."
+
+"Incorrect book-keeping is an offence punishable by law; if you are
+not liable, then I am."
+
+"The law? I care a fig for the law!"
+
+"I daresay! But we shall get into its clutches, if not you, then most
+certainly I! And therefore I am going to be book-keeper in the future."
+
+"We can engage a man to do it."
+
+"No, that's not necessary! I have nothing else to do."
+
+And that settled the matter.
+
+But once the husband occupied the chair at the desk and the people
+came to see _him_, the wife lost all interest in farming and
+cattle-breeding.
+
+A violent reaction set in; she no longer attended to the cows and
+calves, but remained in the house. There she sat, hatching fresh
+plots.
+
+But the husband had regained a fresh hold on life. He took an eager
+interest in the estate and woke up the people. Now he held the reins;
+managed everything, gave orders and paid the bills.
+
+One day his wife came into the office and asked him for a thousand
+crowns to buy a piano.
+
+"What are you thinking of?" said the husband. "Just when we are going
+to re-build the stables! We haven't the means to buy a piano."
+
+"What do you mean?" she replied. "Why haven't we got the means? Isn't my
+money sufficient?"
+
+"Your money?"
+
+"Yes, my money, my dowry."
+
+"That has now become the property of the family."
+
+"That is to say yours?"
+
+"No, the family's. The family is a small community, the only one which
+possesses common property which, as a rule, is administered by the
+husband."
+
+"Why should he administer it and not the wife?"
+
+"Because he has more time to give to it, since he does not bear
+children."
+
+"Why couldn't they administer it jointly?"
+
+"For the same reason that a joint stock company has only one managing
+director. If the wife administered as well, the children would claim
+the same right, for it is their property, too."
+
+"This is mere hair-splitting. I think it's hard that I should have to
+ask your permission to buy a piano out of my own money."
+
+"It's no longer your money."
+
+"But yours?"
+
+"No, not mine either, but the family's. And you are wrong when you say
+that you 'have to ask for my permission'; it's merely wise that you
+should consult with the administrator as to whether the position of
+affairs warrants your spending such a large sum on a luxury."
+
+"Do you call a piano a luxury?"
+
+"A new piano, when there is an old one, must be termed a luxury. The
+position of our affairs is anything but satisfactory, and therefore it
+doesn't permit you to buy a new piano at present, but _I_, personally,
+can or will have nothing to say against it."
+
+"An expenditure of a thousand crowns doesn't mean ruin."
+
+"To incur a debt of a thousand crowns at the wrong time may be the
+first step towards ruin."
+
+"All this means that you refuse to buy me a new piano?"
+
+"No, I won't say that. The uncertain position of affairs...."
+
+"When, oh! when will the day dawn on which the wife will manage her
+own affairs and have no need to go begging to her husband?"
+
+"When she works herself. A man, your father, has earned your money.
+The men have gained all the wealth there is in the world; therefore it
+is but just that a sister should inherit less than her brother,
+especially as the brother is born with the duty to provide for a
+woman, while the sister need not provide for a man. Do you
+understand?"
+
+"And you call that justice? Can you honestly maintain that it is?
+Ought we not all to share and share alike?"
+
+"No, not always. One ought to share according to circumstances and
+merit. The idler who lies in the grass and watches the mason building
+a house, should have a smaller share than the mason."
+
+"Do you mean to insinuate that I am lazy?"
+
+"H'm! I'd rather not say anything about that. But when I used to lie
+on the sofa, reading, you considered me a loafer, and I well remember
+that you said something to that effect in very plain language."
+
+"But what am I to do?"
+
+"Take the children out for walks."
+
+"I'm not constituted to look after the children."
+
+"But there was a time when I had to do it. Let me tell you that a
+woman who says that she is not constituted to look after children,
+isn't a woman. But that fact doesn't make a man of her, by any means.
+What is she, then?"
+
+"Shame on you that you should speak like that of the mother of your
+children!"
+
+"What does the world call a man who will have nothing to do with
+women? Isn't it something very ugly?"
+
+"I won't hear another word!"
+
+And she left him and locked herself into her room.
+
+She fell ill. The doctor, the almighty man, who took over the care of
+the body when the priest lost the care of the soul, pronounced country
+air and solitude to be harmful.
+
+They were obliged to return to town so that the wife could have proper
+medical treatment.
+
+Town had a splendid effect on her health; the air of the slums gave
+colour to her cheeks.
+
+The lawyer practised his profession and so husband and wife had found
+safety-valves for their temperaments which refused to blend.
+
+
+
+
+HIS SERVANT OR DEBIT AND CREDIT
+
+
+Mr. Blackwood was a wharfinger at Brooklyn and had married Miss
+Dankward, who brought him a dowry of modern ideas. To avoid seeing his
+beloved wife playing the part of his servant, Mr. Blackwood had taken
+rooms in a boarding house.
+
+The wife, who had nothing whatever to do, spent the day in playing
+billiards and practising the piano, and half the night in discussing
+Women's Rights and drinking whiskies and sodas.
+
+The husband had a salary of five thousand dollars. He handed over his
+money regularly to his wife who took charge of it. She had, moreover,
+a dress allowance of five hundred dollars with which she did as she
+liked.
+
+Then a baby arrived. A nurse was engaged who, for a hundred dollars,
+took upon her shoulders the sacred duties of the mother.
+
+Two more children were born.
+
+They grew up and the two eldest went to school. But Mrs. Blackwood was
+bored and had nothing with which to occupy her mind.
+
+One morning she appeared at the breakfast table, slightly intoxicated.
+
+The husband ventured to tell her that her behaviour was unseemly.
+
+She had hysterics and went to bed, and all the other ladies in the
+house called on her and brought her flowers.
+
+"Why do you drink so much whisky?" asked her husband, as kindly as
+possible. "Is there anything which troubles you?"
+
+"How could I be happy when my whole life is wasted!"
+
+"What do you mean by wasted? You are the mother of three children and
+you might spend your time in educating them."
+
+"I can't be bothered with children."
+
+"Then you ought to be bothered with them! You would be benefiting the
+whole community and have a splendid object in life, a far more
+honourable one, for instance, than that of being a wharfinger."
+
+"Yes, if I were free!"
+
+"You are freer than I am. I am under your rule. You decide how my
+earnings are to be spent. You have five hundred dollars pin money to
+spend as you like; but I have no pin money. I have to make an
+application to the cash-box, in other words, to you, whenever I want
+to buy tobacco. Don't you think that you are freer than I am?"
+
+She made no reply; she tried to think the question out.
+
+The upshot of it was that they decided to have a home of their own.
+And they set up house-keeping.
+
+"My dear friend," Mrs. Blackwood wrote a little later on to a friend
+of hers, "I am ill and tired to death. But I must go on suffering, for
+there is no solace for an unhappy woman who has no object in life. I
+will show the world that I am not the sort of woman who is content to
+live on her husband's bounty, and therefore I shall work myself to
+death...."
+
+On the first day she rose at nine o'clock and turned out her husband's
+room. Then she dismissed the cook and at eleven o'clock she went out
+to do the catering for the day.
+
+When the husband came home at one o'clock, lunch was not ready. It was
+the maid's fault.
+
+Mrs. Blackwood was dreadfully tired and in tears. The husband could
+not find it in his heart to complain. He ate a burnt cutlet and went
+back to his work.
+
+"Don't work so hard, darling," he said, as he was leaving.
+
+In the evening his wife was so tired that she could not finish her
+work and went to bed at ten o'clock.
+
+On the following morning, as Mr. Blackwood went into his wife's room
+to say good morning to her, he was amazed at her healthy complexion.
+
+"Have you slept well?" he asked.
+
+"Why do you ask?"
+
+"Because you are looking so well."
+
+"I--am--looking--well?"
+
+"Yes, a little occupation seems to agree with you."
+
+"A little occupation? You call it little? I should like to know what
+you would call much."
+
+"Never mind, I didn't mean to annoy you."
+
+"Yes, you did. You meant to imply that I wasn't working hard enough.
+And yet I turned out your room yesterday, just as if I were a
+house-maid, and stood in the kitchen like a cook. Can you deny that I
+am your servant?"
+
+In going out the husband said to the maid:
+
+"You had better get up at seven in future and do my room. Your
+mistress shouldn't have to do your work."
+
+In the evening Mr. Blackwood came home in high spirits but his wife
+was angry with him.
+
+"Why am I not to do your room?" she asked.
+
+"Because I object to your being my servant."
+
+"Why do you object?"
+
+"The thought of it makes me unhappy."
+
+"But it doesn't make you unhappy to think of me cooking your dinner
+and attending to your children?"
+
+This remark set him thinking.
+
+He pondered the question during the whole of his tram journey to
+Brooklyn.
+
+When he came home in the evening, he had done a good deal of thinking.
+
+"Now, listen to me, my love," he began, "I've thought a lot about your
+position in the house and, of course, I am far from wishing that you
+should be my servant. I think the best thing to do is this: You must
+look upon me as your boarder and I'll pay for myself. Then you'll be
+mistress in the house, and I'll pay you for my dinner."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked his wife, a little uneasy.
+
+"What I say. Let's pretend that you keep a boarding-house and that I'm
+your boarder. We'll only pretend it, of course."
+
+"Very well! And what are you going to pay me?"
+
+"Enough to prevent me from being under an obligation to you. It will
+improve my position, too, for then I shall not feel that I am kept out
+of kindness."
+
+"Out of kindness?"
+
+"Yes; you give me a dinner which is only half-cooked, and then you go
+on repeating that you are my servant, that is to say, that you are
+working yourself to death for me."
+
+"What are you driving at?"
+
+"Is three dollars a day enough for my board? Any boarding-house will
+take me for two."
+
+"Three dollars ought to be plenty."
+
+"Very well! Let's say a thousand dollars per annum. Here's the money
+in advance!"
+
+He laid a bill on the table.
+
+It was made out as follows:
+
+  Rent                               500 dollars
+  Nurse's wages                      100    "
+  Cook's wages                       150    "
+  Wife's maintenance                 500    "
+  Wife's pin money                   500    "
+  Nurse's maintenance                300    "
+  Cook's maintenance                 300    "
+  Children's maintenance             700    "
+  Children's clothes                 500    "
+  Wood, light, assistance            500    "
+
+                                 4.500 dollars
+
+"Divide this sum by two, since we share expenses equally, that leaves
+2025 dollars. Deduct my thousand dollars and give me 1025 dollars. If
+you have got the money by you, all the better."
+
+"Share expenses equally?" was all the wife could say. "Do you expect
+me to pay you, then?"
+
+"Yes, of course, if we are to be on a footing of equality. I pay for
+half of your and the children's support. Or do you want me to pay the
+whole? Very well, that would mean that I should have to pay you 4050
+dollars plus 1000 dollars for my board. But I pay separately for rent,
+food, light, wood and servants' wages. What do I get for my three
+dollars a day for board? The preparation of the food? Nothing else but
+that for 4050 dollars? Now, if I subtract really half of this sum,
+that is to say, my share of the expenses, 2025 dollars, then the
+preparation of my food costs me 2025 dollars. But I have already paid
+the cook for doing it; how, then, can I be expected to pay 2025 dollars,
+plus 1000 dollars for food?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Neither do I. But I know that I owe you nothing after paying for the
+whole of your support, the children's support and the servants'
+support; the servants who do your work, which, in your opinion, is
+equal, or superior, to mine. But even if your work should really be
+worth more, you must remember that you have another five hundred
+dollars in addition to the household expenses, while I have nothing."
+
+"I repeat that I don't understand your figures!"
+
+"Neither do I. Perhaps we had better abandon the idea of the
+boarding-house. Let's put down the debit and credit of the
+establishment. Here's the account, if you'd like to see it."
+
+  To Mrs. Blackwood for assistance in the house, and to Mrs. Blackwood's
+  cook and nursemaid:
+
+  Rent and maintenance                       1000 dollars
+  Clothes                                     500     "
+  Amusements                                  100     "
+  Pin money (by cash)                         500     "
+  Her children's maintenance                 1200     "
+  Her children's education                    600     "
+  On account of the maids who do her
+  work                                        850     "
+
+                                           4570 dollars
+
+  Paid M. Blackwood, _Wharfinger_
+
+"Oh! It's too bad of you to worry your wife with bills!"
+
+"With counter-bills! And even that one you need not pay, for I pay all
+bills."
+
+The wife crumpled up the paper.
+
+"Am I to pay for your children's education, too?"
+
+"No, I will, and I shall, and I will also pay for your children's
+education. You shall not pay one single farthing for mine. Is that
+being on a footing of equality? But I shall deduct the sum for the
+maintenance of my children and servants: then you will still have 2100
+dollars for the assistance you give to my servants. Do you want any
+more bills?"
+
+She wanted no more; never again.
+
+
+
+
+THE BREADWINNER
+
+
+He wakes up in the morning from evil dreams of bills which have become
+due and copy which has not been delivered. His hair is damp with cold
+perspiration, and his cheeks tremble as he dresses himself. He listens
+to the chirruping of the children in the next room and plunges his
+burning face into cold water. He drinks the coffee which he has made
+himself, so as not to disturb the nursery maid at the early hour of
+eight o'clock. Then he makes his bed, brushes his clothes, and sits
+down to write.
+
+The fever attacks him, the fever which is to create hallucinations of
+rooms he has never seen, landscapes which never existed, people whose
+names cannot be found in the directory. He sits at his writing table
+in mortal anguish. His thoughts must be clear, pregnant and
+picturesque, his writing legible, the story dramatic; the interest
+must never abate, the metaphors must be striking, the dialogue
+brilliant. The faces of those automata, the public, whose brains he is
+to wind up, are grinning at him; the critics whose good-will he must
+enlist, stare at him through the spectacles of envy; he is haunted by
+the gloomy face of the publisher, which it is his task to brighten. He
+sees the jurymen sitting round the black table in the centre of which
+lies a Bible; he hears the sound of the opening of prison doors behind
+which free-thinkers are suffering for the crime of having thought bold
+thoughts for the benefit of the sluggards; he listens to the noiseless
+footfall of the hotel porter who is coming with the bill....
+
+And all the while the fever is raging and his pen flies, flies over
+the paper without a moment's delay at the vision of publisher or
+jurymen, leaving in its track red lines as of congealed blood which
+slowly turn to black.
+
+When he rises from his chair, after a couple of hours, he has only
+enough strength left to stumble across the room. He sinks down on his
+bed and lies there as if Death held him in his clutches. It is not
+invigorating sleep which has closed his eyes, but a stupor, a long
+fainting fit during which he remains conscious, tortured by the
+horrible thought that his strength is gone, his nervous system
+shattered, his brain empty.
+
+A ring at the bell of the private hotel! _Voila le facteur_! The mail
+has arrived.
+
+He rouses himself and staggers out of his room. A pile of letters is
+handed to him. Proofs which must be read at once; a book from a young
+author, begging for a candid criticism: a paper containing a
+controversial article to which he must reply without delay, a request
+for a contribution to an almanac, an admonishing letter from his
+publisher. How can an invalid cope with it all?
+
+In the meantime the children's nurse has got up and dressed the
+children, drunk the coffee made for her in the hotel kitchen, and
+eaten the rolls spread with honey which have been sent up for her.
+After breakfast she takes a stroll in the park.
+
+At one o'clock the bell rings for luncheon. All the guests are assembled
+in the dining-room. He, too, is there, sitting at the table by himself.
+
+"Where is your wife?" he is asked on all sides.
+
+"I don't know," he replies.
+
+"What a brute!" is the comment of the ladies, who are still in their
+morning gowns.
+
+The entrance of his wife interrupts the progress of the meal, and the
+hungry guests who have been punctual are kept waiting for the second
+course.
+
+The ladies enquire anxiously whether his, wife has slept well and
+feels refreshed? Nobody asks him how he feels. There is no need to
+enquire.
+
+"He looks like a corpse," says one of the ladies.
+
+And she is right.
+
+"Dissipation," says another.
+
+But that is anything but true.
+He takes no part in the conversation, for he has nothing to say to
+these women. But his wife talks for two. While he swallows his food,
+his ears are made to listen to rich praise of all that is base, and
+vile abuse of all that is noble and good.
+
+When luncheon is over he takes his wife aside.
+
+"I wish you would send Louisa to the tailor's with my coat; a seam has
+come undone and I haven't the time to sew it up myself."
+
+She makes no reply, but instead of sending the coat by Louisa, she
+takes it herself and walks to the village where the tailor lives.
+
+In the garden she meets some of her emancipated friends who ask her
+where she is going.
+
+She replies, truthfully enough, that she is going to the tailor's for
+her husband.
+
+"Fancy sending her to the tailor's! And she allows him to treat her
+like a servant!"
+
+"While he is lying on the bed, taking an after-dinner nap! A nice
+husband!"
+
+It is quite true, he is taking an after dinner nap, for he is
+suffering from anaemia.
+
+At three o'clock the postman rings again; he is expected to answer a
+letter from Berlin in German, one from Paris in French, and one from
+London in English.
+
+His wife, who has returned from the tailor's and refreshed herself
+with a cognac, asks him whether he feels inclined to make an excursion
+with the children. No, he has letters to write.
+
+When he has finished his letters, he goes out for a stroll before
+dinner. He is longing for somebody to talk to. But he is alone. He
+goes into the garden and looks for the children.
+
+The stout nurse is sitting on a garden seat, reading Mrs. Leffler's
+_True Women_ which his wife has lent her. The children are bored, they
+want to run about or go for a walk.
+
+"Why don't you take the children for a walk, Louisa?" he asks.
+
+"Mistress said it was too hot."
+
+His wife's orders!
+
+He calls to the children and walks with them towards the high road;
+suddenly he notices that their hands and faces are dirty and their
+boots in holes.
+
+"Why are the children allowed to wear such boots?" he asks Louisa.
+
+"Mistress said...."
+
+His wife said!
+
+He goes for a walk by himself.
+
+It is seven o'clock and dinner-time. The ladies have not yet returned
+to the hotel. The two first courses have been served when they arrive
+with flushed faces, talking and laughing loudly.
+
+His wife and her friend are in high spirits and smell of cognac.
+
+"What have you been doing with yourself all day, daddy?" she asks her
+husband.
+
+"I went for a walk with the children."
+
+"Wasn't Louisa there?"
+
+"Oh! yes, but she was otherwise engaged."
+
+"Well, I don't think it's too much to ask of a man to keep an eye on
+his own children," says the friend.
+
+"No, of course not," answers the husband. "And therefore I scolded
+Louisa for allowing the children to run about with dirty faces and
+worn-out boots."
+
+"I never come home but I am scolded," says the wife; "You spoil every
+little pleasure I have with your fault-finding."
+
+And a tiny tear moistens her reddened eyelids. The friend and all the
+rest of the ladies cast indignant glances at the husband.
+
+An attack is imminent and the friend sharpens her tongue.
+
+"Has anybody here present read Luther's views on the right of a woman?"
+
+"What right is that?" asks his wife.
+
+"To look out for another partner if she is dissatisfied with the one
+she has."
+
+There is a pause.
+
+"A very risky doctrine as far as a woman's interests are concerned,"
+says the husband, "for it follows that in similar circumstances a man
+is justified in doing the same thing. The latter happens much more
+frequently than the former."
+
+"I don't understand what you mean," says the wife.
+
+"That's neither Luther's fault nor mine," answers the husband. "Just
+as it is not necessarily the husband's fault if he doesn't get on with
+his wife. Possibly he would get on excellently with another woman."
+
+A dead silence follows; the diners rise from their chairs.
+
+The husband retires to his own room. His wife and her friend leave the
+dining-room together and sit down in the pavilion.
+
+"What brutality!" exclaims the friend. "How can you, a sensitive,
+intelligent woman, consent to be the servant of that selfish brute?"
+
+"He has never understood me," sighs the wife. Her satisfaction in being
+able to pronounce these damning words is so great, that it drowns the
+memory of a reply which her husband has given her again and again:
+
+"Do you imagine that your thoughts are so profound that I, a man with
+a subtle brain, am unable to fathom them? Has it never occurred to you
+that it may be your shallowness which prevents you from understanding
+me?"
+
+He sits down in his room, alone. He suffers from remorse, as if he had
+struck his mother. But she struck the first blow; she has struck him
+blow after blow, for many years, and never once before has he
+retaliated.
+
+This coarse, heartless, cynical woman, in whose keeping he confided
+his whole soul with all its thoughts and emotions, was conscious of
+his superiority, and therefore she humiliated him, dragged him down,
+pulled him by the hair, covered him with abuse. Was it a crime that he
+struck back when she publicly taunted him? Yes--he felt as guilty as
+if he had murdered his dearest friend.
+
+The twilight of the warm summer night deepens and the moon rises.
+
+The sound of music from the drawing-room floats through his window. He
+goes into the garden and sits down under a walnut tree. Alone! The
+chords of the piano blend with the words of the song:
+
+    When the veil of night was drawn
+    And crowded earth, mysterious sea
+    Became one sweet, enchanted ground
+    For us, until the starless dawn
+    Dissolved the failing moon--then we
+    In one long ecstasy were bound.
+    Now, I, alone in silence and in pain
+    Weep for the ache of well-remembered bliss,
+    For you who never can return again,
+    For you, my spring time, for your love, your kiss.
+
+He strolls through the garden and looks through the window. There she
+sits, his living poem, which he has composed for his own delight. She
+sings with tears in her voice. The ladies on the sofas look at one
+another significantly.
+
+But behind the laurel bushes on a garden seat two men are sitting,
+smoking, and chatting. He can hear what they say.
+
+"Nothing but the effect of the cognac."
+
+"Yes, they say that she drinks."
+
+"And blame the husband for it."
+
+"That's a shame! She took to drinking in Julian's studio. She was
+going to be an artist, you know, but she didn't succeed. When they
+rejected her picture at the exhibition, she threw herself at the head
+of this poor devil and married him to hide her defeat."
+
+"Yes, I know, and made his life a burden until he is but the shadow of
+his former self. They started with a home of their own in Paris, and
+he kept two maids for her; still she called herself his servant.
+Although she was mistress over everything, she insisted that she was
+but his slave She neglected the house, the servants robbed them right
+and left, and he saw their home threatened with ruin without being
+able to move a finger to avert it. She opposed every suggestion he
+made; if he wanted black, she wanted white. In this way she broke his
+will and shattered, his nerves. He broke up his home and took her to a
+boarding-house to save her the trouble of housekeeping and enable her
+to devote herself entirely to her art. But she won't touch a brush and
+goes out all day long with her friend. She has tried to come between
+him and his work, too, and drive him to drink, but she has not managed
+it; therefore she hates him, for he is the better of the two."
+
+"But the husband must be a fool," remarks the other man.
+
+"He is a fool wherever his wife is concerned, but he is no exception
+to the rule. They have been married for twelve years and he is still
+in love with her. The worst of it is that he is a strong man, who
+commanded the respect of Parliament and Press, is breaking up. I
+talked to him this morning; he is ill, to say the least."
+
+"Yes; I heard that she tried to have him locked up in a asylum, and
+that her friend did everything in her power to assist her."
+
+"And he works himself to death, so that she can enjoy herself."
+
+"Do you know why she treats him so contemptuously? Because he cannot
+give her all the luxury she wants. 'A man who cannot give his wife all
+she wants,' she said the other day at dinner, 'ce n'est pas grand'
+chose.' I believe that she counted on his booming her as an artist.
+Unfortunately his political views prevent him from being on good terms
+with the leading papers, and, moreover, he has no friends in artistic
+circles; his interests lie elsewhere."
+
+"I see; she wanted to make use of him for her own ends; when he
+resisted she threw him over; but he serves his purpose as a breadwinner."
+
+  Now, I, alone in silence and in pain,
+  Weep for the ache of well-remembered bliss....
+
+comes her voice from the drawing-room.
+
+"Bang!" the sound came from behind the walnut tree. It was followed by
+a snapping of branches and a crunching of sand.
+
+The talkers jumped to their feet.
+
+The body of a well-dressed man lay across the road, with his head
+against the leg of a chair.
+
+The song stopped abruptly. The ladies rushed into the garden. The
+friend poured a few drops of eau de Cologne which she held in her
+hand, on the face of the prostrate man.
+
+When she realised that it was no fainting fit, she started back.
+"Horrible!" she exclaimed, putting her hand up to her face.
+
+The elder of the two men, who was stooping over; the dead body, looked
+up.
+
+"Be silent, woman!" he exclaimed.
+
+"What a brute!" said the friend.
+
+The dead man's wife fainted, but was caught in the arms of her friend
+and tenderly nursed by the rest of the women.
+
+"Send for a doctor!" shouted the elder of the two men. "Run!"
+
+Nobody took any notice; everybody was busy with the unconscious wife.
+
+"To bring such grief on his wife! Oh! what a man! What a man!" sobbed
+the friend.
+
+"Has no one a thought for the dying man? All this' fuss because a woman
+has fainted! Give her some brandy, that will revive her!"
+
+"The wretched man has deserved his fate!" said the friend emphatically.
+
+"He indeed deserved a better fate than to fall into your hands alive.
+Shame on you, woman, and all honour to the breadwinner!"
+
+He let the hand of the dead man go and rose to his, feet.
+
+"It's all over!" he said.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Married, by August Strindberg
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