Part 7 (1/2)
My master--I am incensed!
SIFUL SIFADDA.
We have said that Harald, just as little as Griselda's blessed husband, appeared to like a life which flowed like oil. Perhaps it seemed to him that his intercourse with Susanna was now a.s.suming this character, and therefore was it perhaps that, as he could no longer excite her abhorrence as a misanthropist, one fine day he undertook to irritate her as a woman-tyrant.
”I am expecting my sister here one of these days,” said he one evening in a disrespectful tone to Susanna; ”I have occasion for her, to sew a little for me, and to put my things in order. Alette is a good, clever girl, and I think of keeping her with me till I marry, and can be waited on by my wife.”
”Waited on by your wife!” exclaimed Susanna--one may easily conceive in what a tone.
”Yes, certainly. The woman is made to be subject to the man; and I do not mean to teach my wife otherwise. I mean to be master in my house, I.”
”The Norwegian men must be despots, tyrants, actual Heathens and Turks!”
said Susanna.
”Every morning,” said Harald, ”precisely at six o'clock, my wife shall get up and prepare my coffee.”
”But if she will not?”
”Will not? I will teach her to will, I. And if she will not by fair means, then she shall by foul. I tolerate no disobedience, not I; and this I mean to teach in the most serious manner; and if she does not wish to experience this, why then I advise her to rise at six o'clock, boil my coffee, and bring it me up to bed.”
”Nay, never did I hear anything like this! You are the sole--G.o.d have mercy on the wives of this abominable country!”
”And a good dinner,” continued Harald, ”shall she set before me every day at noon, or--I shall not be in the best temper! And she must not come with her 'Fattig Leilighed'[7] more than once a fortnight; and then I demand that it shall be made right savoury.”
”If you will have good eating, then you must make good provision for the housekeeping,” said Susanna.
”That I shall not trouble myself about; that my wife must care for. She shall provide stores for housekeeping how she can.”
”I hope, then,” said Susanna, ”you will never have a wife, except she be a regular Xantippe.”
”For that we know a remedy; and therefore, to begin with, every evening she shall pull off my boots. All that is necessary is, for a man to begin in time to maintain his authority; for the women are by nature excessively fond of ruling.”
”And that because the men are tyrants,” said Susanna.
”And besides,” continued Harald, ”so horribly petty-minded.”
”Because,” retorted Susanna, ”the men have engrossed to themselves all matters of importance.”
”And are so full of caprice,” said Harald.
”Because the men,” said Susanna, ”are so brimful of conceit.”
”And so fickle,” added Harald.
”Because the men,” retorted Susanna, ”are not deserving of constancy.”
”And so obstinate and violent,” continued Harald.