Part 11 (1/2)

4

Too much together is bad, and too much apart may be worse. As I suggested before, there is no pleasing this inst.i.tution.

It is easier to live too separate than too close, for one comes together freshly, and marriage feels less irremediable when it hardly exists.

There really are couples who care for each other very well, who meet in a country house and say: ”What! you here! How jolly!” That is an extreme case. In practice, separateness means conjugal acquaintances.h.i.+p.

Different pleasures, different friends, perhaps different worlds; indeed, one is mutually fresh, but traveling different roads, one may find that there is nothing in common. Of two evils, it is better perhaps to be too intimate than too distant, because there are many irritating things that with reminiscence become delightful. The dreadful day when he sat on the eggs in the train is not entirely dreadful, for he looked so silly when he stood up, removing the eggs, and though one was angry, one vaguely loved him for having made a fool of himself. (There are nine and sixty ways of gaining affection, and one of them is to be a good-tempered b.u.t.t.)

Separateness, naturally, cannot coincide with the sense of mutual property. This is perhaps the cause of the greatest unhappiness in marriage, for so many forget that to be married is not to be one. They do not understand that however much they may love, whatever delights they may share, whatever common ambitions they may harbor, whatever they hope, or endeavor, or pray, two people are still two people. Or if they know it, they say, ”He is mine.” ”She is mine.” If one could give oneself entirely, it would be well enough, but however much one may want to do so one cannot, just because one is the axis of the earth. Because one cannot, one will not, and he that would absorb will never forgive.

He will be jealous, he will be suspicious, tyrannical, he will watch and lay traps, he will court injury, he will air grievances, because the next best thing to complete possession is railing at his impotency to conquer. That jealousy is turned against everything, against work, against art, against relatives, friends, dead loves, little children, toy dogs: ”Thou shalt have none other G.o.ds but me” is a human commandment.

Men do not, as a rule, suffer very much from this desire to possess, because they are so sure that they do possess, because they find it so difficult to conceive that their wife can find any other man attractive.

They are too well accustomed to being courted, even if they are old and repulsive, because they have power and money; only they think it is because they are men. Beyond a jealous care for their wives' fidelity, which I suspect arises mainly from the feeling that an unfaithful wife is a criticism, they do not ask very much. But women suffer more deeply because they know that man has lavished on them for centuries a condescending admiration, that the king who lays his crown at their feet knows that his is the crown to give. While men possess by right of possession, women possess only by right of precarious conquest. They feel it very bitterly, this fugitive empire, and their greatest tragedy is to find themselves growing a little older, uncertain of their power, for they know they have only one power; they are afraid, as age comes, of losing their man, while I have never heard of a husband afraid of losing his wife, or able to repress his surprise if she forsook him.

It would not matter so much if the feeling of property were that of a good landlord, who likes to see his property develop and grow beautiful, but mutual property is the feeling of the slave owner. Sometimes both parties suffer so, and by asking too much lose all. Man seldom asks much: if only a wife will not compromise his reputation for attractiveness while maintaining her own by flirtation, if she will accept his political views, acquire a taste for his favorite holiday resorts, and generally say, ”Yes, darling”, or ”No, darling”, opportunely, she need do nothing, she has only ”beautifully to be.” He is not so fortunate, however, when she wants to possess him, for she demands that he should be active, that the pretty words, caresses, the anxious inquiries after health, the presents of flowers and of stalls should continue. It is not enough that he should love her; he must still be her lover. When she is not sure that he still is her lover, a madness of unrest comes over her; she will lacerate him, she will invent wishes so that he may thwart them, she will demand his society when she knows it is mortgaged to another occupation, so that she may suffer his refusal, exaggerate his indifference. Here are cases:

M 21. She: ”He used to take me to dances. The other day he wouldn't come, he said he was tired. He wasn't tired when we were engaged.”

The Investigator: ”But why should he go if he didn't want to?”

She: ”Because I wanted to.”

The Investigator: ”But he didn't want to.”

She: ”He _ought_ to take pleasure in pleasing me.”

(The conversation here degenerates into a discussion on duty and becomes uninteresting.)

M 4. The husband is a doctor with a very extended city practice. He is busy eleven hours a day and has night calls. His marriage has been spoilt because in the first years the wife, who is young and gay, could not understand that the man, who was always surrounded by people, in houses, streets, conveyances, should not desire society. She resented his wish to be alone for some hours, to shut himself up. There were tears, and like most people she looked ugly when she cried. She was lonely, and when one is lonely, it is difficult to realize that other people may be too much surrounded.

5

A great deal of all this, however, might pa.s.s away if one could feel that it would not last. Nothing matters that does not last. Only one must be conscious of it, and in marriage many people are dully aware that they have settled down, that they have drawn the one and only ticket they can ever hope to draw, unless merciful death steps in. There will be no more adventures, no more excitements, no more marsh fires, which one knows deceptive yet loves to follow. It will be difficult to move to other towns or countries, to change one's occupation; it will even be difficult to adopt new poses, for the other will not be taken in. One will be for evermore what one is. True there is elopement, divorce; in matters of art, there is the artist courage that enables a man to see another suffer for the sake of his desire. But all this is very difficult, and few of us have courage enough to make others suffer; if one had the courage to do no harm at all, it might not be so bad, but not many can follow Mr. Bernard Shaw: ”If you injure your neighbor, let it not be by halves.” They almost invariably do injure by halves: he that will not kill, scratches. There is no refuge from a world of rates, and taxes, and bills, and houses overcrowded by children, and old clothes, dull leaders in the papers, stupid plays, the morning train, the unvarying Sunday dinner. It is so bad sometimes that it causes willful revolt. I sincerely believe that a great many men would be model husbands if only they were not married. Only when everything is respectable and nice there is a terrible temptation to introduce a change; the wild animal in man, that is in a few a lion, in most a weasel, reacts against the definite, the irremediable, the a.s.sured. He must do something. He must break through. He must prove to himself that he has not really sentenced himself to penal servitude for life. That is why so few of the respectable are respectable, and why reformed rakes do make good husbands. (Generally, that is, for a few rakes feel that they must keep up their reputation; on the other hand, a really respectable man knows no shame.)