Part 21 (1/2)
”Do you mean to tell me you will never marry on this account?”
”I would never marry anyone who would exact the usual submissions and renunciations, or even desire them, which I suppose amounts almost to saying that I shall never marry at all. What man would endure a wife who demanded to retain her absolute freedom, as in the case of a close friends.h.i.+p? The man is not born!”
”You seem to forget, dear Hadria, in objecting to place yourself under the yoke, as you call it, that your husband would also be obliged to resign part of _his_ independence to you. The prospect of loss of liberty in marriage often prevents a man from marrying (”Wise man!”
e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Hadria), so you see the disadvantage is not all on one side, if so you choose to consider it.”
”Good heavens! do you think that the opportunity to interfere with another person would console me for being interfered with myself? I don't want my share of the constraining power. I would as soon accept the lash of a slave-driver. This moral lash is almost more odious than the other, for its thongs are made of the affections and the domestic 'virtues,' than which there can be nothing sneakier or more detestable!”
Henriette heaved a discouraged sigh. ”You are wrong, my dear Hadria,”
she said emphatically; ”you are wrong, wrong, wrong.”
”How? why?”
”One can't have everything in this life. You must be willing to resign part of your privileges for the sake of the far greater privileges that you acquire.”
”I can imagine nothing that would compensate for the loss of freedom, the right to oneself.”
”What about love?” murmured Henriette.
”Love!” echoed Hadria scornfully. ”Do you suppose I could ever love a man who had the paltry, ungenerous instinct to enchain me?”
”Why use such extreme terms? Love does not enchain.”
”Exactly what I contend,” interrupted Hadria.
”But naturally husband and wife have claims.”
”Naturally. I have just been objecting to them in what you describe as extreme terms.”
”But I mean, when people care for one another, it is a joy to them to acknowledge ties and obligations of affection.”
”Ah! one knows what _that_ euphemism means!”
”Pray what does it mean?”
”That the one serious endeavour in the life of married people is to be able to call each other's souls their own.”
Henriette stared.
”My language may not be limpid.”
”Oh, I see what you mean. I was only wondering who can have taught you all these strange ideas.”
Hadria at length gave way to a laugh that had been threatening for some time.
”My mother,” she observed simply.
Henriette gave it up.