University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.

SCARCELY had the old man gone when a gen-
eral conversation began.

"There's a little Old Testament father for
you," said the clerk.

"He is a Domostroy,"* said the lady. "What
savage ideas about a woman and marriage!"

"Yes, gentlemen," said the lawyer, "we are
still a long way from the European ideas upon
marriage. First, the rights of woman, then
free marriage, then divorce, as a question not
yet solved." . . .

"The main thing, and the thing which such
people as he do not understand," rejoined the
lady, "is that only love consecrates marriage,
and that the real marriage is that which is con-
secrated by love."

The clerk listened and smiled, with the air of
one accustomed to store in his memory all in-
telligent conversation that he hears, in order to
make use of it afterwards.

"But what is this love that consecrates mar-
riage?" said, suddenly, the voice of the nervous
and taciturn gentleman, who, unnoticed by us,
had approached.

He was standing with his hand on the seat,
and evidently agitated. His face was red, a

vein in his forehead was swollen, and the mus-
cles of his cheeks quivered.

"What is this love that consecrates mar-
riage?" he repeated.

"What love?" said the lady. "The ordinary
love of husband and wife."

"And how, then, can ordinary love consecrate
marriage?" continued the nervous gentleman,
still excited, and with a displeased air. He
seemed to wish to say something disagreeable to
the lady. She felt it, and began to grow agi-
tated.

"How? Why, very simply," said she.

The nervous gentleman seized the word as it
left her lips.

"No, not simply."

"Madam says," interceded the lawyer indicat-
ing his companion, "that marriage should be
first the result of an attachment, of a love, if you
will, and that, when love exists, and in that case
only, marriage represents something sacred.

But every marriage which is not based on a nat-
ural attachment, on love, has in it nothing that
is morally obligatory. Is not that the idea that
you intended to convey?" he asked the lady.

The lady, with a nod of her head, expressed
her approval of this translation of her thoughts.

"Then," resumed the lawyer, continuing his
remarks.

But the nervous gentleman, evidently scarcely
able to contain himself, without allowing the
lawyer to finish, asked:

"Yes, sir. But what are we to understand by
this love that alone consecrates marriage?"

"Everybody knows what love is," said the
lady.

"But I don't know, and I should like to know
how you define it."

"How? It is very simple," said the lady.

And she seemed thoughtful, and then said:

"Love . . . love . . . is a preference for one
man or one woman to the exclusion of all
others. . . ."

"A preference for how long? . . . For a
month, two days, or half an hour?" said the
nervous gentleman, with special irritation.

"No, permit me, you evidently are not talking
of the same thing."

"Yes, I am talking absolutely of the same
thing. Of the preference for one man or one

woman to the exclusion of all others. But I
ask: a preference for how long?"

"For how long? For a long time, for a life-
time sometimes."

"But that happens only in novels. In life,
never. In life this preference for one to the
exclusion of all others lasts in rare cases several
years, oftener several months, or even weeks,
days, hours. . . ."

"Oh, sir. Oh, no, no, permit me," said all
three of us at the same time.

The clerk himself uttered a monosyllable of
disapproval.

"Yes, I know," he said, shouting louder than
all of us; "you are talking of what is believed to
exist, and I am talking of what is. Every man
feels what you call love toward each pretty
woman he sees, and very little toward his wife.

That is the origin of the proverb,—and it is a
true one,—'Another's wife is a white swan, and
ours is bitter wormwood."'

"Ah, but what you say is terrible! There
certainly exists among human beings this feel-
ing which is called love, and which lasts, not for
months and years, but for life."

"No, that does not exist. Even if it should
be admitted that Menelaus had preferred Helen
all his life, Helen would have preferred Paris;
and so it has been, is, and will be eternally.

And it cannot be otherwise, just as it cannot
happen that, in a load of chick-peas, two peas
marked with a special sign should fall side by
side. Further, this is not only an improbability,
but it is certain that a feeling of satiety will
come to Helen or to Menelaus. The whole dif-
ference is that to one it comes sooner, to the
other later. It is only in stupid novels that it is
written that 'they loved each other all their
lives.' And none but children can believe it.

To talk of loving a man or woman for life is
like saying that a candle can burn forever."

"But you are talking of physical love. Do
you not admit a love based upon a conformity
of ideals, on a spiritual affinity?"

"Why not? But in that case it is not neces-
sary to procreate together (excuse my brutal-
ity). The point is that this conformity of ideals
is not met among old people, but among young
and pretty persons," said he, and he began to
laugh disagreeably. "Yes, I affirm that love,

real love, does not consecrate marriage, as we
are in the habit of believing, but that, on the
contrary, it ruins it."

"Permit me," said the lawyer. "The facts
contradict your words. We see that marriage
exists, that all humanity—at least the larger
portion—lives conjugally, and that many hus-
bands and wives honestly end a long life to-
gether."

The nervous gentleman smiled ill-naturedly.

"And what then? You say that marriage is
based upon love, and when I give voice to a
doubt as to the existence of any other love than
sensual love, you prove to me the existence of
love by marriage. But in our day marriage is
only a violence and falsehood."

"No, pardon me," said the lawyer. "I say
only that marriages have existed and do exist."

"But how and why do they exist? They have
existed, and they do exist, for people who have
seen, and do see, in marriage something sacra-
mental, a sacrament that is binding before God.

For such people marriages exist, but to us they
are only hypocrisy and violence. We feel it,
and, to clear ourselves, we preach free love; but,

really, to preach free love is only a call back-
ward to the promiscuity of the sexes (excuse
me, he said to the lady), the haphazard sin of
certain
raskolniks
. The old foundation is shat-
tered; we must build a new one, but we must
not preach debauchery."

He grew so warm that all became silent, look-
ing at him in astonishment.

"And yet the transition state is terrible. Peo-
ple feel that haphazard sin is inadmissible. It is
necessary in some way or other to regulate the
sexual relations; but there exists no other foun-
dation than the old one, in which nobody longer
believes? People marry in the old fashion, with-
out believing in what they do, and the result is
falsehood, violence. When it is falsehood alone,
it is easily endured. The husband and wife
simply deceive the world by professing to live
monogamically. If they really are polygamous
and polyandrous, it is bad, but acceptable. But
when, as often happens, the husband and the
wife have taken upon themselves the obligation
to live together all their lives (they themselves
do not know why), and from the second month
have already a desire to separate, but continue

to live together just the same, then comes that
infernal existence in which they resort to drink,
in which they fire revolvers, in which they as-
sassinate each other, in which they poison each
other."

All were silent, but we felt ill at ease.

"Yes, these critical episodes happen in marital
life. For instance, there is the Posdnicheff af-
fair," said the lawyer, wishing to stop the con-
versation on this embarrassing and too exciting
ground. "Have you read how he killed his wife
through jealousy?"

The lady said that she had not read it. The
nervous gentleman said nothing, and changed
color.

"I see that you have divined who I am," said
he, suddenly, after a pause.

"No, I have not had that pleasure."

"It is no great pleasure. I am Posdnicheff."

New silence. He blushed, then turned pale
again.

"What matters it, however?" said he. "Ex-
cuse me, I do not wish to embarrass you."

And he resumed his old seat.