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 prost.i.tution. 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 prost.i.tution 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 rehea.r.s.ed 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 pa.s.sion 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 p.r.i.c.ked 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 t.i.tle 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 cla.s.ses, 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 cla.s.ses 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 n.o.bler 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 s.e.x, 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 t.i.tle, 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. s.n.a.t.c.hes 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 gla.s.s 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 a.n.a.lyse 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 a.s.sembled 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: