Told in a French Garden — 07- Chapter Six, Part 1

THE TALE OF A MODERN WIFE

As I look back, I remember that the next night was one of the most trying of the week.

As we came down to dinner we all had visions of the destruction of Louvain, and the burning of the famous library.

It is hard enough to think of lives going out; still, as the Doctor was so fond of saying, "man is born to die, and woman, too," but that the great works of men, his bequest to the coming generations, should be wantonly destroyed, seemed even more horrible, especially to those who love beauty, and the idea of the charred leaves of the library flying in the air above the historic city of catholic culture, made us all feel as if we were sitting down to a funeral service rather than a very good dinner.

Matters were not made any gayer because Angéle, who was waiting on table, had rings round her eyes, which told of sleepless nights.

And why?

We were mere spectators.

We had been interested to dispute and look on.

But she knew that somewhere out there in the northeast her man was carrying a gun.

Yet all about us the country was so lovely and so tranquil, horses were walking the fields, and, even as we sat at dinner, we could hear the voices and the heavy feet of the peasant women as they went home from their work.

The garden had never been more beautiful than it was that evening, with the silver light of the moon through the trees, and the smell of the freshly watered earth and flowers.

We had no doubt who was to contribute the story.

The Divorcée was dressed with unusual care for the rôle, and carried a big lace bag on her arm, and, as she leaned back in her chair, she pulled one of the big old fashioned candles in its deep glass toward her, and said with a nervous laugh: "I shall have to ask you to let me read my story.

You know I am not accustomed to this sort of thing.

It is really my very 'first appearance,' and I could not possibly tell it as the rest of you more experienced people can do," and she took the manuscript out of her lace bag, and, settling herself gracefully, unrolled it.

The Youngster put a stool under her pretty feet, and the Doctor set a cushion behind her back, while the Journalist, with a laugh, poured her a glass of water, and the Violinist ceremoniously leaned over, and asked, "Shall I turn for you?"

She could not help laughing, but it did not make her any the less nervous, or her voice any the less shaky as she began: * * * * * It was after dinner on one of those rare occasions when they dined alone together.

They were taking coffee in Mrs. Shattuck's especial corner of the drawing-room, and she had just asked her husband to smoke.

She was leaning back comfortably in a nest of cushions, in her very latest gown, with a most becoming light falling on her from the tall, yellow-shaded lamp.

He was facing her--astride his chair, in a position man has loved since creation.

He was just thinking that his wife had never looked handsomer, finer, in fact, in all her life--quite the satisfactory, all-round, desirable sort of a woman a man's wife ought to be.

She was wondering if he would ever be any less attractive to all women than he was now at forty-two--or any better able to resist his own power.

As she put her coffee cup back on the tiny table at her elbow, he leaned forward, and picked up a book which lay open on a chair near him, and carelessly glanced at it.

"Schopenhauer," and he wrinkled his brows and glanced half whimsically down the page.

"I never can get used to a woman reading that stuff--and in French, at that.

If you took it up to perfect your German there would be some sense in it."

Mrs. Shattuck did not reply.

When a moment later, she did speak it was to ignore his remark utterly, and ask: "The _Kaiser Wilhelm_ got off in good season this morning--speaking of German things?"

"Oh, yes," was the indifferent reply, "at ten o'clock, quite promptly."

"I suppose she was comfortable, and that you explained why I could not come?"

"Certainly.

One of your beastly head-aches.

She understood."

"Thank you."

Shattuck yawned lazily, and changed the subject, which did not seem to interest him.

"Do you mean to say," he asked, still turning the leaves of the book he held, "that this pleases you?"

"Not exactly."

"Well, amuses you?

Instructs you, if you like that better?"

"No, I mean to say simply--since you insist--that he speaks the truth, and there are some--even among women--who must know the truth and abide by it."

"Well, thank Heaven," said the man, pulling at his cigar, "that most women are more emotional than intelligent--as Nature meant them to be."

Mrs. Shattuck examined her daintily polished nails, rubbed them carefully on the palm of her hand, as women have a trick of doing, and then polished them on her lace handkerchief, before she said, "Yes, it is a pity that we are not all like that,--a very great pity--for our own sakes.

Yet, unluckily, some of us _will_ think."

"But the thinking woman is so rarely logical, so unable to take life impersonally, that Schopenhauer does her no good.

He only fills her mind with errors, mistrust, unhappiness."

"You men always argue that way with women--as if life were not the same for us as for you.

Pass me the book.

I wager that I can open it at random, and that you cannot deny the truth of the first sentence I read."

He passed her the book.

She took it, laid it open carelessly on her knees, bending the covers far back that it might stay open, and she gave her finger tips a final rub with her handkerchief before she looked at the page.

She paused a bit after she glanced at it, then picked up the book and read: "'_L'homme est par Nature porté à l'inconstance dans l'amour, la femme à la fidelité.

L'amour de l'homme baisse d'une façon sensible à partir de l'instant où il a obtenu satisfaction: il semble que toute autre femme ait plus d'attrait que celle qu'il possède.

_'" She laid the book down, but she did not look at him.

"Rubbish," was his remark.

"Yes, I know.

You men always find it so easy to say 'rubbish' to all natural truths which you prefer not to discuss."

"Well, my dear Naomi, it seems to me that if you are to advocate Schopenhauer, you must go the whole length with him.

The fault is in Nature, and you must accept it as inevitable, and not kick against it."

"I don't kick against Nature--as you put it--I kick against civilization, which makes laws regardless of Nature, which deliberately shuts its eyes to all natural truths in regard to the relations of men to women,--and is therefore forced to continually wink to avoid confessing its folly."

"Civilization seems to me to have done the best it could with a very difficult problem.

It has not actually allowed different codes of morals to men and women, and it may have had to wink on that account.

Right there, in your Schopenhauer, you have a primal reason, that is, if you chose to follow your philosopher to the extent of actually believing that Nature has deliberately, from the beginning, protected women against that sin of which so much is made, and to which she has, as deliberately, for economic reasons of her own, tempted men."

"I do believe it, truly."

"You are no more charitable toward my sex than most women are.

Yet neither your teacher nor you may be right.

A theoretic arguer like Schopenhauer makes good enough reading for calm minds, but he is bad for an emotional temperament, and, by Jove, Naomi, he was a bad example of his own philosophy."

"My dear Dick, I am afraid I read Schopenhauer because I thought what he writes long before I ever heard of him.

I read him because did I not find a clear logical mind going the same way my mind will go, I might be troubled with doubts, and afraid that I was going quite wrong."

"Well, the deuce and all with a woman when she begins to read stuff like that is her inability to generalize.

You women take everything home to yourselves.

You try to deduct conclusions from your own lives which men like Schopenhauer have scanned the centuries for.

The natural course of your life could hardly have provided you with the pessimism with which--I hope you will pardon my remark, my dear--you have treated me several times in the past few months.

Chamfort and Schopenhauer did that.

But these are not subjects a man discusses easily with his wife."

"Indeed?

Then that is surely an error of civilization.

If a man can discuss such matters more easily with a woman who is not his wife, it is because there is no frankness in marriage.

Dick, did it ever occur to you that a man and woman, strongly attracted toward one another, might live together many years without understanding each other?"

"God forbid!"

"How easily you say that!"

"I have heard that most women think they are not understood, but I never reflected on the matter."

"You and I have not troubled one another much with our doubts and perplexities."

"You and I have been very happy together--I hope."

There was a little pause before the last two words, as if he had expected her to anticipate them with something, and there was a half interrogative note in his voice.

She made no response, so he went on, "I've surely not been a hard master--and I hope I've not been selfish.

I know I've not been unloving."

"And I hope you've not suffered many discomforts on my account.

I

think, as women go, I am fairly reasonable--or I have been."

For some reason Shattuck seemed to find the cigar he was smoking most unsatisfactory.

Either it had been broken, or he had unconsciously chewed the end--a thing which he detested--and there was a pause while he discarded the weed, and selected a fresh one.

He appeared to be reflecting as he lighted it, and if his mind could have been read, it would have probably been discovered that he was wondering how it had happened that the conversation had taken this turn, and mentally cursing his own stupidity in making any remarks on the Schopenhauer.

He was conscious all the time that his wife was looking rather steadily at him, and he knew that at least a conventional reply was expected of him.

"My dear girl," he said, "I look back on ten very satisfactory years of married life.

You have been a model wife, a charming companion--and if occasionally it has occurred to me--just lately--that my wife has developed rather singular, to say the least, unflattering ideas of life, why, you have such a brilliant way of putting it, that I am more than half proud that you've the brains to hold such ideas, though they are a bit disconcerting to me as a husband.

I suppose the development is logical enough.

You were always, even as a girl, inclined to making footnotes.

I suppose their present daring is simply the result of our being just a little older than we used to be.

I

suppose if we did not outgrow our illusions, the road to death would be too tragic."

For a moment she made no reply.

Then, as if for the first time owning to the idea which had long been uppermost in her mind, she said suddenly: "The truth of the matter is, that I really believe marriage is foolish.

I do believe that no man ever approached it without regretting that civilization had made it necessary, and that many men would escape, at the very last moment, if women did not so rigidly hold them to their promises, and if, between two ridiculous positions, marriage having been pushed nearest, had not become desperately inevitable."

"How absurd, Naomi, when you see the whole procession of men walking,--according to their dispositions--calmly or eagerly to their fate every day."

"Nevertheless, I think the pre-nuptial confessions of a majority of men of our class, would prove that what I say is true."

"Are you hinting that it was true in your case?"

"Perhaps."

Shattuck gave an amused laugh.

"Do you mean to say that you kept me to the point?"

"Not exactly.

At that time I had an able bodied father who would have had to be dealt with.

Besides, a man does not own up even to himself--not always--when he finds himself face to face with the inevitable.

I am not speaking of what men talk about in such cases, or of what they do, but of what they feel,--of the fact that, in too many instances, Nature not having meant men for bondage, after they have passed the Rubicon to that spot from which the code of civilized honor does not permit them to turn back, they usually have a period of regret, and are forced to make a real effort to face the Future,--to go on, in fact."

The smile had died out of Shattuck's face and he said quite seriously: "As far as we are concerned, Naomi, I have very different recollections of the whole affair."

"Have you?

And yet, months before we were married, I knew that it would not have broken your heart if the wedding had not come off at all."

"My dear, the modern heart does not break easily in this age.

We are schooled to meet the accidents of life with some philosophy."

"And yet to have lost you then, would have killed me."

Shattuck looked at her sharply, with, one might almost have said, a new interest, but she was no longer looking at him.

She went on, hurriedly: "You loved me, of course.

I was of your world.

I was a woman that other men liked, and therefore a desirable woman.

I was of good family--altogether your social equal, in fact, quite the sort of woman it became you to marry.

I pleased you--and I loved you."

"Thank you, my dear," he said.

"In ten years, I doubt if you have ever made so frank a declaration as that--in words."

He was wondering, if, after all, she were going to develop into an emotional woman, and his heart gave a quick leap at the very thought--for there are hours when a woman who runs too much to head has a man at a cruel disadvantage.

"Things are so much harder, so much more complex for a woman," she went on.

"For the protection of the community?"

"Perhaps.

Still, it is not always pleasant to be a woman,--and yet think; a woman whose reason has been mistakenly developed at the expense of her capacity to enjoy being a woman, and who is forced at the same time to encounter the laws of Nature, and pay at the same time, the penalty of being a woman, and the penalty of knowledge.

For, just so surely as we live, we must encounter love.

--" "You might take it out," interrupted the husband, "in feeling flattered that it takes so much to conquer such as you."

"So we might, but that, once conquered, neither man nor Nature has any further use for us, and regret, like art, is long.

Not even you can deny," she exclaimed, sitting up in some excitement, and letting her cushions fall in a mess all about her, "that life is very unfair to women."

"Well, I don't see that.

Physically it is a little rough on you, but there are compensations."

"I have never been able to discover them.

Love itself is hard on a woman.

It seems to stir a man's faculties healthily.

They seem the stronger and more fit for it.

It does not seem to uproot a man's whole being.

Does it serve women in that way?"

"I bear witness that it makes some of you deucedly handsome.

And I have heard that it makes some of you--good."

"Yes, as chastisement does.

No, Life seems to have adjusted matters between men and women very badly, very unjustly."

"And yet, as this life is the only one we know we must adjust ourselves to it as we find it."

"No, no. We had better have accepted the thing as Nature gave it to us.

We came into this world like beasts--why aren't we content to live like beasts, and make no pretenses?

Women would have nothing to expect then, and there'd be no such thing as broken hearts.

In spite of all the polish of civilization, man is simply bent on conquest.

Woman is only one phase of the chase to him--a chase in which every active virile man is occupied from his cradle to his grave.

You are the conquerors.

We are simply the conquered."

Shattuck tried to make his voice light, as he said: "Not always unhappy ones, I fancy."

"I suppose all men flatter themselves that way, and argue that probably the Sabine women preferred their fate to no fate at all."

"Don't be bitter on so old and impersonal a topic, Naomi.

It is the law of life that one must give, and one must take.

That the emotions differ does not prove that one is better than the other."