Married

“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 Elysées, 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, à-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!