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What a change! Poor old Pal looked old and felt puzzled.

“To be married and yet not have a wife,” he thought, “it’s intolerable!”

On the following morning he wanted to take his wife for a sail. But the sea did not agree with Ottilia. She had been ill on the steamer. And, moreover, it was Sunday. Sunday? That was it! Well, they would go for a walk. They had a lot to talk about. Of course, they had a lot to say to each other. But Ottilia was not to come with them!

They went out together, arm in arm. But they did not talk much; and what they said were words uttered for the sake of concealing their thoughts more than for the sake of exchanging ideas.

They passed the little cholera cemetery and took the road leading to the Swiss Valley. A faint breeze rustled through the pine trees and glimpses of the blue sea flashed through the dark branches.

They sat down on a stone. He threw himself on the turf at her feet. Now the storm is going to burst, he thought, and it did.

“Have you thought at all about our marriage?” she began.

“No,” he replied, with every appearance of having fully considered the matter, “I have merely felt about it. In my opinion love is a matter of sentiment; one steers by landmarks and makes port; take compass and chart and you are sure to founder.”

“Yes, but our home has been nothing but a doll’s house.”

“Excuse me, but this is not quite true. You have never forged a bill; you have never shown your ankles to a syphilitic doctor of whom you wanted to borrow money against security in natura; you have never been so romantically silly as to expect your husband to give himself up for a crime which his wife had committed from ignorance, and which was not a crime because there was no plaintiff; and you have never lied to me. I have treated you every bit as honestly as Helmer treated his wife when he took her into his full confidence and allowed her to have a voice in the banking business; tolerated her interference with the appointment of an employee. We have therefore been husband and wife according to all conceptions, old and new-fashioned.”

“Yes, but I have been your housekeeper!”

“Pardon me, you are wrong. You have never had a meal in the kitchen, you have never received wages, you have never had to account for money spent. I have never scolded you because one thing or the other was not to my liking. And do you consider my work: to reckon and to brace, to ease off and call out ‘Present arms,’ count herrings and measure rum, weigh peas and examine flour, more honourable than yours: to look after the servants, cater for the house and bring up the children?”

“No, but you are paid for your work! You are your own master! You are a man!”

“My dear child, do you want me to give you wages? Do you want to be my housekeeper in real earnest? That I was born a man is an accident. I might almost say a pity, for it’s very nearly a crime to be a man now-a-days, but it isn’t my fault. The devil take him who has stirred up the two halves of humanity, one against the other! He has much to answer for. Am I the master? Don’t we both rule? Have I ever decided any important matter without asking for your advice? What? But you–you bring up the children exactly as you like! Don’t you remember that I wanted you to stop rocking them to sleep because I said it produced a sort of intoxication? But you had your own way! Another time I had mine, and then it was your turn again. There was no compromise possible, because there was no middle course to steer between rocking and not rocking. We got on very well until now. But you have thrown me over for Ottilia’s sake!”