Three Comedies Part 48

Nordan. Oh, I quite believe your son had every honourable intention when he gave his promise. And very likely he would have kept it, too; I cannot say for certain, because I have learnt to doubt. I am a doctor--I have seen too much--and he did not appear to great advantage yesterday.

You really must forgive my saying so--but after the liveliness of his young days, coupled with the tendencies he has inherited, do you think he really had any right to be surprised if people doubted him?--if his fiancee doubted him? Had he really any right to feel insulted, or to demand apologies? Apologies for what? For having doubted his virtue?--Just consider that!

Christensen. Why, what--?

Nordan. One moment! I was only half done. You said something about a reconciliation, you know; of course by that you meant a marriage. If your son is willing to marry a woman who distrusts him, then I shall despise him.

Christensen. Really--!

Nordan. Yes, indeed I shall. Our opinions are as different as all that.

To my way of thinking, your son's only course is to submit--and wait; to keep silence, and wait--always supposing, of course, that he still loves her. That is my view of it.

Christensen. Well, I imagine that there are very few candidates for matrimony who have not been guilty of what my son has been guilty of; indeed, I am sure of it. And I imagine, too, that they have the same unfortunate "hereditary tendencies"--an expression on which you laid stress out of special friends.h.i.+p for me. But is that any reason why girls who are betrothed should behave as Miss Riis has been doing?--scream, and run away, and create a scandal? We should not be able to hear ourselves speak! It would be the queerest sort of anarchy the world has ever seen! Why, such doctrines as that are contrary to the very nature and order of things! They are mad! And when, into the bargain, they are thrown at our heads as if they were decisions of a High Court of Morality--well, then I strike! Good-bye! (Starts to go, but turns back.) And who is it that these High Court of Morality's decisions would for the most part affect, do you suppose? Just the ablest and most vigorous of our young men. Are we going to turn them out and make a separate despised caste of them? And what things would be affected, do you suppose? A great part of the world's literature and art; a great part of all that is loveliest and most captivating in the life of to-day; the world's greatest cities, most particularly--those wonders of the world--teeming with their millions of people! Let me tell you this: the life that disregards marriage or loosens the bonds of marriage, or transforms the whole inst.i.tution--you know very well what I mean--the life that is accused of using the "weapons of seduction" in its fas.h.i.+ons, its luxury, its entertainments, its art, its theatre--that life is one of the most potent factors in these teeming cities, one of the most fruitful sources of their existence! No one who has seen it can have any doubt about it, however ingenuous he may pretend to be. Are we to wish to play havoc with all that too?--to disown the flower of the world's youth, and ruin the world's finest cities? It seems to me that people wish to do so much in the name of morality, that they end by wis.h.i.+ng to do what would be subversive of all morality.

Nordan. You are certainly embarking on your little war in the true statesmanlike spirit!

Christensen. It is nothing but sound common-sense, my dear sir; that is all that is necessary, I am sure. I s.h.i.+ll have the whole town on my side, you may be certain of that!

Thomas (appearing at the house door). Doctor!

Nordan (turning round). Is it possible! (Hurries to the doorway, in which MRS. RIIS appears.)

Mrs. Riis. May I--?

Nordan. Of course! Will you come out here?

Mrs. Riis (to CHRISTENSEN, who bows to her). My visit is really to you, Mr. Christensen.

Christensen. I am honoured.

Mrs. Riis. I happened to look out into the street just as your carriage stopped and you got out. So I thought I would seize the opportunity--because you threatened us yesterday, you know. Is that not so? You declared war against us?

Christensen. My recollection of it is that war was declared, Mrs. Riis, but that I merely accepted the challenge.

Mrs. Riis. And what line is your campaign going to take, if I may ask the question?

Christensen. I have just had the honour of explaining my position to the doctor. I do not know whether it would be gallant to do as much to you.

Nordan. I will do it, then. The campaign will be directed against your husband. Mr. Christensen takes the offensive.

Mrs. Riis. Naturally!--because you know you can strike at him. But I have come to ask you to think better of it.

Christensen (with a laugh). Really?

Mrs. Riis. Once--many years ago now--I took my child in my arms and threatened to leave my husband. Thereupon he mentioned the name of another man, and s.h.i.+elded himself behind that--for it was a distinguished name. "See how lenient that man's wife is," he said. "And, because she is so, all her friends are lenient, and that will be all the better for their child." Those were his words.

Christensen. Well, as far as the advice they implied was concerned, it was good advice--and no doubt you followed it.

Mrs. Riis. The position of a divorced woman is a very humiliating one in the eyes of the world, and the daughter of such a woman fares very little better. The rich and distinguished folk who lead the fas.h.i.+on take care of that.

Christensen. But what--?

Mrs. Riis. That is my excuse for not having the courage to leave him. I was thinking of my child's future. But it is my husband's excuse, too; because he is one of those who follows the example of others.

Christensen. We all do that, Mrs. Riis.

Mrs. Riis. But it is the leaders of society that set the example, for the most part; and in this matter they set a tempting one. I suppose I can hardly be mistaken in thinking that I have heard your view of this matter, all along, through my husband's mouth? Or, if I am mistaken in that, I at all events surely heard it more accurately yesterday, when I heard your voice in everything that your son said?

Christensen. I stand by every word of what my son said.

Mrs. Riis. I thought so. This campaign of yours will really be a remarkable one! I see your influence in everything that has happened, from first to last. You are the moving spirit of the whole campaign--on both sides!

Nordan. Before you answer, Christensen--may I ask you, Mrs. Riis, to consider whether you want to make the breach hopelessly irreparable?

Do you mean to make a reconciliation between the young people quite impossible?

Mrs. Riis. It is impossible, as it is.

Nordan. Why?

Mrs. Riis. Because all confidence is destroyed.

Nordan. More so now than before?

Mrs. Riis. Yes. I will confess that up to the moment. When Alfred's word of honour was offered yesterday--up to the moment when he demanded that his word of honour should be believed--I did not recognise the fact that it was my own story over again. But it was--word for word my own story!

That was just the way we began; who will vouch for it that the sequel would not be the same as in our case?

Christensen. My son's character will vouch for that, Mrs. Riis!

Mrs. Riis. Character? A nice sort of character a man is likely to develop who indulges in secret and illicit courses from his boyhood!

That is the very way faithlessness is bred. If any one wants to know the reason why character is such a rare thing, I think they will find the answer in that.

Christensen. A man's youth is by no means the test of his life. That depends on his marriage.

Mrs. Riis. And why should a man's faithlessness disappear when he is married? Can you tell me that?

Christensen. Because then he loves, of course.

Mrs. Riis. Because he loves? But do you mean that he has not loved before then? How absolutely you men have blinded yourselves!--No, love is not the least likely to be lasting when the will is vitiated. And that is what it is--vitiated by the life a bachelor leads.

Christensen. And yet I know plenty of sensual men who have strong wills.

Mrs. Riis. I am not speaking of strength of will, but of purity, faithfulness, n.o.bility of will.

Christensen. Well, if my son is to be judged by any such nonsensical standard as that, I am devoutly thankful he has got out of the whole thing before it became serious--indeed I am! Now we have had enough of this. (Prepares to go.)

Mrs. Riis. As far as your son is concerned--. (Turns to NORDAN.) Doctor, answer me this, so that his father may hear it before he goes. When you refused to go with us to the betrothal party, had you already heard some thing about Alfred Christensen? Was what you had heard of such a nature that you felt you could not trust him?

Nordan (after a moment's thought). Not altogether, certainly.